


Plaything

by unifiedbuzzard



Category: Venom (Movie 2018)
Genre: Abdominal Bulging, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Anal Plug, Anal Sex, Begging, Big Cock, Biting, Blood, Bondage, But not your usual fanfic version of stockholm syndrome, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death, Cognitive Distortions, Coping Mechanisms, Dark!Venom, Depersonalization, Dildo Gag, Dissociation, Does this count as psychological horror yet?, Forced Masturbation, Forced Orgasm, Gags, I researched the shit out of this, Injury, Kissing?, Mentions of Suicide, My porn developed plot again, Non-Consensual Oral Sex, Oral, Orgasm Delay, Other, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Porn, Porn With Plot, Prostate Milking, Punishment, Rape, Repressed Memories, Rimming, Semi-Public Sex, Shower Sex, Size Kink, Sounding, Stockholm Syndrome, Tentacle Sex, Tentacles, That's used lightly, This is "act of self delusion to reduce extreme stress" stockholm, This isn't "in love with my captor" stockholm, Tongue Fucking, Venom shoves his tongue down Eddie's throat, supportive friends
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-17
Updated: 2019-08-02
Packaged: 2019-08-03 17:59:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 20
Words: 66,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16330889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unifiedbuzzard/pseuds/unifiedbuzzard
Summary: In which Venom isn’t so nice to Eddie after the initial escape from the lab. He’s just found himself a new plaything, and it’s his to explore.If you want consensual relationship porn, or even just dub-con, this is not your fic. This is a darker Venom. A Venom who hasn’t learned to love Eddie yet. Or maybe he never will.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Okay. Don’t get me wrong. I love the relationship Eddie and Venom have in the movie. I love them loving each other, and I love that everybody’s on board with the gay interspecies rom-com. And I almost didn’t write this because I didn’t really want to sully that relationship.
> 
> But also I want in on this monster porn, and non-con is just how I roll. And I figure if I have this itch, other people probably do too.

Eddie’s mouth tastes like vomit, and he stumbles to the sink and desperately grabs at his toothbrush. He squeezes on about three times as much toothpaste as he usually uses and starts scrubbing at his teeth frantically. Why did he eat that? What is wrong with him?  
  
He spits out a mouthful of minty foam and looks at himself tiredly in the mirror.  
  
**Eddie.**  
  
The voice comes out of nowhere, and his own eyes change right in front of him, morphing into some monstrous demon eyes.  
  
He shrieks and pushes himself away from the sink suddenly, and is flung backward with far more force than he had expected. His body flies across the small bathroom and into the shower. The shower curtain half envelops him and he tears it off the curtain rod as he goes down into the tub.  
  
He strikes his head on the wall as he lands, and the world around him goes black.  
  
When he wakes up, there’s something touching him. He jumps, startled, and opens his eyes and looks around quickly, but there’s no one else in the room.  
  
He’s sprawled half way into the tub, and he starts to push himself up, but something under his shirt moves, and he startles, staring down at his chest. It tickles its way down to his stomach and then slowly back up his side. With shaking hands he grabs the bottom of his sweatshirt and shirt and pulls them up quickly, exposing his stomach and chest in an effort to find what has somehow gotten itself into his clothing.  
  
There’s something small, black, and kind of slimy looking crawling its way across his skin. He reaches for it with one hand, but quickly chickens out of touching it. What he hell is it? Suddenly it sinks into his skin and disappears, and Eddie stares with slowly widening eyes.  
  
“What the hell?” he rasps to himself. He scrambles up out of the tub quickly and pulls his shirt and sweatshirt off over his head as he moves shakily toward the mirror. He peers at his reflection, turns this way and that, inspecting his body for the thing he knows he had seen on it just a few seconds ago.  
  
**Yess** , comes a voice out of nowhere again, and he spins suddenly, looking for the source.  
  
Without warning, thin black tendrils sprout from his stomach and he yelps, stumbles backward, and falls again, sprawling across his bathroom floor. They move with an almost liquid-like consistency. He stares in horror. He can’t help but think of the movie _Alien_ , of the creatures that burst from men’s chests, but these don’t hurt him. They just sort of… tingle.  
  
“What _is_ that?” he asks aloud to nobody, his shaking hand reaching for them as a few move down his stomach and start exploring the front of his trousers.  
  
**I am Venom. I am in you, and you are _mine_.**  
  
His hands move suddenly of their own accord, his arms snapping up above his head. They pin themselves to the floor, and he feels more of the slimy substance seep out of his wrists. He pulls at his arms, but the stuff has stuck itself to the floor and he can’t move them.  
  
“ _In_ me?” he squeaks out. But he can feel it now. He can feel it inside of him, in his gut, his chest, his _mind_. His insides squirm, but it’s not quite a physical feeling, or at least not one he could even begin to describe. There’s another presence in his head, just barely on the edge of his awareness.  
  
The tendrils exploring his trousers manage to open them, and Eddie makes a wordless sound of distress and confusion as the tendrils grow in width and length and start working his clothing down. They struggle a bit with his shoes, but before long the tendrils are pushing his pile of clothing away, and he’s left naked on his floor.  
  
“What- what are you doing?” His voice is shaking. He starts to pull his legs up, not liking being stretched out naked on the floor, but two of the tentacles wrap quickly around his ankles and then bond themselves to the floor. He pulls uselessly, making a little whine of fear.  
  
**Exploring what’s mine.**  
  
A larger mass of the black substance emerges from Eddie’s chest. It rises above him, then curls downward toward his face and something forms at the end of it, only recognizable as a face itself because of the grinning maw of teeth. Eddie stares in terror, his blood going cold in his veins.  
  
**Your fear is so potent. Delicious.**  
  
The thing speaks aloud this time, and its tongue snakes out of that terrifying mouth and slithers up Eddie’s cheek. Eddie makes a sound of disgust and turns his head away, but there’s no escaping a creature that’s coming out of his own body.  
  
The tongue leaves a thick layer of slime on his skin. It slides up his temple, across his forehead, and then down the other side of his face. He’s got his eyes squeezed shut, his face scrunched up in disgust and fear, fully expecting this thing is going to eat him.  
  
At the same time, he feels other tendrils emerge from his body and start exploring their way across his bare skin, and he shivers.  
  
The tongue on his face slides across his mouth, and he tightens his lips together, but it doubles back and slides across them again. The creature laughs quietly.  
  
Despite his best efforts to keep it out, the tip of the tongue snakes its way between his lips and the whole thing starts sliding into his mouth. He bites down on it in his own defense, but it keeps coming, the monster not even reacting as if it felt his retaliation.  
  
He moans around it, disgusted at the slime and the feel of it as it explores his mouth, toying with his own tongue and sliding across his teeth. Suddenly it pushes in farther, toward the back of his mouth, and there’s nothing he can do as it slides its way down his throat.  
  
He chokes, his body jerking, his arms pulling at their restraints. He bites down again, but it keeps coming, growing thicker in his mouth, stretching his throat as it slides deeper into him. The rough voice sounds in his head again.  
  
**You’ve got some fight in you. I like that. But it won’t do any good.**  
  
He opens his watering eyes to see the creature mere inches from his face, still grinning wickedly. The tongue retreats a little bit, and he thinks it’s going to let him breathe, but then it thrusts back in, going even deeper and stretching his mouth open wide. He screws his eyes shut again and chokes and gags around the mass down his throat.  
  
It pulls out of his mouth just as his eyes are starting to roll back in his head, his body weakening from lack of air. He coughs and gasps, and the tongue snakes around his neck, embracing it wetly.  
  
**So sensitive.**  
  
He’s suddenly aware again of the other tendrils on his body. One has found a nipple and teases at it almost gently. Others are snaking their way up and down the inside of this thighs, across his belly, along his arms, seeking out the softest, most sensitive skin.  
  
His core tightens in shock as one brushes against his cock. The creature laughs.  
  
**Mm, yes, that feels good, doesn’t it?**  
  
The tongue slides down his collarbone and to his other nipple, toying with it and leaving slime across his chest as more tendrils move toward his cock. They converge, wrapping around it, embracing his length and his balls, and his breath catches in his throat. The mass around him undulates, and the touch does feel good, but this is entirely too fucked up for him to become aroused.  
  
This monster is going to have its way with him, he realizes.  
  
He pulls at his limbs weakly, but the alien’s hold is still strong.  
  
His legs are bent, his feet flat against the floor and pinned there by the appendages around his ankles. His back is flat against the cold floor, but as he feels the black mass around his groin explore further between his legs, a thin arm of it slithering between his cheeks, his muscles tighten and he bucks suddenly, arching his back and lifting his hips away from the floor in an attempt to escape the touch.  
  
“No, no, no no no…” His voice barely sounds like his own voice, clenched and desperate. “Don’t… Please don’t.”  
  
The alien voice just laughs, and the tongue is back at his mouth, pushing into it and back down his throat, silencing his pleas.  
  
**Quiet.**  
  
He gags, tears running from his eyes. The mass around his cock squeezes him lightly, pulling on it and rippling against him. The monster lets him hold his hips away from the ground, but it doesn’t stop it from snaking deeper. It probes at his hole, shaping itself around it, teasing and pushing lightly. Eddie looks around desperately as the tongue slides deeper into his throat.  
  
This can’t be happening. This is some sick, fucked up nightmare. He’s still unconscious in his tub, and is just dreaming this up. He has to be. But he can’t deny the churning in his stomach that tells him that all of this feels far too real for his brain to be making it up.  
  
The tendril against his hole is suddenly done exploring gently, and it thickens and pushes into him. Somehow he manages to release a muffled scream around the tongue invading his throat as the other appendage forces its way into his ass, stretching him wide around it. It floods into him, crawling along his inner walls, pushing in deep and making him arch his back harder. He’s completely unprepared for this, and the stretch of the insertion sends fire along his nerves.  
  
**Mm, interesting. Such pain…**  
  
Some part of it brushes against his prostate and a burst of pleasure breaks through the pain briefly.  
  
**But such pleasure, too.**  
  
The tongue pulls out of his mouth and he takes in a gasp of air. At the same time, the thing in his ass presses hard into his prostate again, and he lets his lungful of air out in a helpless moan.  
  
The tendrils on his body all move suddenly, and he finds himself flipped over onto his stomach. His arms are still pinned above his head and his legs get forced straight and pinned down to the floor again. He twists his head to the side and looks fearfully over his shoulder as black masses rise and writhe above him.  
  
The appendage in his ass seems to solidify, thickening at the same time, sending another shock through his body, and he lets out a scream of pain as it stretches him wider. He can’t take much more of this. He wrenches his eyes open again as his scream fades, and tries to lift his head, his whole body shaking. He doesn’t really want to see what it’s doing to him, but at the same time, wants to know what’s coming. Out of the corner of his eye he glimpses a thick, curved arm of it, originating from his thighs and curving down toward his ass.  
  
The appendage tenses suddenly and slams forward, ramming more of its length into his ass, and he lets out another scream. He can feel it squirming its way deeper into his body, filling him and moving inside him, but in a completely different way from how he felt this creature inside him before it started fucking him.  
  
It sets up a brutal rhythm, pounding into him relentlessly as he cries out in helpless pain.  
  
**How much of me can you fit, Eddie?**  
  
The tendril in his ass thickens again, and he screams, feeling himself on the brink of tearing.  
  
“No… no more, please!” He wails in pain.  
  
Another tendril forces its way into his mouth, thick and hard, stretching his jaw open and silencing him save for guttural grunts as the creature continues fucking him hard. It’s a small grace that it stays out of his throat this time, but it too thrusts in time with the other, bouncing off the back of his throat and making him gag.  
  
Through the blinding pain he’s just barely aware that tendrils are still working at his cock, and every few thrusts, the thing in his ass twists in a way that pushes hard into his prostate, sending small shocks of pleasure through his body. He shudders reflexively.  
  
**Mm, yes, I like that.**  
  
The harsh pounding stops suddenly, and Eddie lets out a shaking breath. The appendage in his ass doesn’t change size, still stretching him painfully, but instead of thrusting hard into him again and again, only the part already inside him moves, curling and wiggling against his sensitive nerves. He moans around the thick appendage in his mouth, and it suddenly seems to melt away, leaving his mouth empty. He bites his lip to try to quiet himself as the black tendrils focus now on stimulating his cock and prostate.  
  
His cock and balls are completely enveloped and it pulses and moves against him, finding his most sensitive spots, quickly pinpointing exactly what makes him moan.  
  
He takes in a gasp as he feels himself grow hard within its embrace.  
  
Oh no. No fucking way. He is not going to cum with some weird, alien slime creature jerking him off and crawling its way up his ass. He may be a little on edge, frustrated and wanting from too long without a partner, too long with nothing but his own hand to satisfy him, but he’s not _that_ desperate. He shakes his head and tries to struggle away.  
  
But it holds him tightly, and it seems to have figured out exactly how he likes to be touched, and he can’t stop what his body is feeling, even with the nastiest of thoughts running through his mind.  
  
He moans again.  
  
**Yesss, good.**  
  
It works at him until he’s panting. The mass around his cock pulls on him, squeezes him, nearly _vibrates_ around him. It massages his balls with just the right amount of pressure. And in his ass, as sickened as he is to think about it, it presses into his prostate with a steady rhythm, pushing bursts of pleasure straight to his brain.  
  
It’s still thick in his hole, still hurts pretty badly, but he’s almost grateful for that, because it’s just about the only thing holding him back right now from cumming as a space alien rapes him.  
  
But it doesn’t seem like it’s going to stop and let him go any time soon, and he doesn’t really want to think about where all this is going. With his cock hard and growing harder, the touches to all his most sensitive parts are only feeling better and better.  
  
He starts making some pretty disgusting noises, he realizes, but doesn’t have the self-control to stop himself. The motions in his ass quicken, sending more and more shocks of pleasure through his body, and he gasps and pants and whines against the floor between wanton moans and wails.  
  
He feels the shuddery feeling start building in him, concentrating in his core, pooling in his groin. He squeezes his eyes shut and struggles weakly against the tendrils holding him down to the floor as he tries desperately to hold himself back from the orgasm that he knows is coming.  
  
The blackness around and inside of him seems to swell suddenly, squeezing his throbbing cock and pressing into his prostate hard enough to make his vision blank out, and he finally tumbles over the edge. His whole body tightens and shudders as the wave of pleasure washes over him, and he can hardly even hear his own strangled scream as he cums hard, pulse after pulse of movement around and in him carrying him through it.  
  
It goes on and on, washing any other thought and feeling out of his mind and body as the unwanted pleasure takes over everything.  
  
When it finally fades, he collapses on the floor with one last shuddery breath, his muscles trembling weakly.  
  
By the time normal sensation returns to him it’s all gone. Melted away, retreated into his own body… Or maybe it was never there to begin with. Did he imagine the whole thing?  
  
He moves his hands slowly, painfully, pushes his torso up from the ground and looks down at himself. He’s covered in sweat, lying in a smear of his own cum, but there’s no sign of the black tendrils that had restrained and tortured him. If he imagined it, it must have been one hell of a hallucination, considering the mess he’s made of himself.  
  
As he starts to lift his hips, he stops suddenly and collapses back to the floor with a small cry. His ass is in so much pain he thinks he might pass out. It can’t have been a hallucination. There was definitely something up his ass. He tries to move again, but falls to the floor once more with a little whimper.  
  
He prods through his own mind, and there it is. That awareness that there’s something else there. The alien in his head is quiet, as if just watching him in the aftermath. It doesn’t say anything, but he can feel its gaze in his mind, inspecting his reactions, watching him like some kind of sick voyeur.  
  
Eddie rolls painfully on to his side and covers his face with both hands. He has no idea what he’s managed to get himself into, and he feels completely helpless. As if he hadn’t destroyed his life enough already, now he’s host to some alien parasite and has quickly learned that he is completely at its mercy.  
  
A sob escapes him and he tries to hold it in, but what’s the point? In his head he feels the alien practically purr in satisfaction. There’s nobody to help him, nobody who would even believe him if he dared to tell them what had just happened to him. There’s nobody left in his life who would even care. His body shakes as he cries quietly, soreness and pain slowly creeping through his muscles as the monster that did it to him just watches.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this wasn’t as satisfying to me as I had hoped it would be, but it’s written now so I figured I’d just post it. But let me know if it scratched that itch for you. I may even add to it. ;)


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't think I've ever written a chapter so fast in my life. I love this fandom and all you monsterfuckers.

When he finally manages to haul himself painfully off of his bathroom floor, gathers his discarded clothing, and limps out of the room, he truly realizes how fucking awful he feels.  
  
Every muscle in his body is sore. He must have been fighting his restraints harder than he thought. Even without something fucking its way up his asshole, the whole area still hurts beyond what he would have imagined. He groans and grips the doorframe unsteadily as he passes through it. How long before he’s going to be able to walk normally again?  
  
He stumbles into his bedroom and stops. He’s not really sure what to do with himself. He’s still sticky, covered in sweat, his thighs and lower stomach still coated in his own cum from where he had been lying in it. He looks down at himself and groans. He wants to take a shower, but he’s not keen on going back in that room after what had just happened there. He tore his shower curtain down, anyway.  
  
He tries not to think too hard about the fact that there’s no escaping his rapist, no matter where he goes. It’s in his mind, living in his own goddamn body. He shudders and turns around back toward the kitchen.   
  
He closes the freezer and fridge as he limps by, grabs a reasonably clean dish towel, runs it under the faucet, then puts it to work cleaning himself up. He just wants clothes on again, but he’s not about to get into them covered in all this crap.  
  
When he’s dressed again, he finds his phone where he had left it on the counter, and he flips through the photos on it, just trying to distract himself. Looking at them, they horrify him almost as much as what just happened. He went there to expose what Carlton Drake is doing, and the fact that he now has an alien up his ass shouldn’t change that. He looks at his front door and debates if he even dares leave in the state he’s in. His head is splitting, his body aches, and he still feels a little ill.  
  
But most of all, what if the alien decides to come back for seconds while he’s out? He shudders. Not that he’s eager to be seen like that, but at least then someone would see and maybe help him… Or just shoot him in terror, but at least he’d be put out of his misery then.  
  
But the memory of those tendrils sliding across his skin, of that horrible face and the tongue down his throat… that thing ramming into his ass… He shudders again and lets out a shaky breath. He just wants to curl up and die right now, and the thought of going outside, of being among people with something like this weighing down his mind, with the shame of what just happened to him, is more than he can deal with.  
  
He should go try to find help. Sitting at home isn’t going to get him anywhere. He should talk to someone, even if it lands him in a loony bin. But he can’t bring himself to leave.  
  
Finally, he limps painfully back to his bedroom. It’s still early, but he just wants to be done with today. He changes into his night clothes quickly, trying not to look at himself lest the creature in his head decides it wants more, and he curls up under his covers, hiding his head beneath them as if that would keep the monster away.  
  
He tries to sleep, but he can’t. He can’t get the images out of his head, the memory of what it felt like to have it inside him, of what it felt like to be used like that. He tosses and turns, makes himself stop and try meditating, even tries literally counting sheep in his head, but the horrible images keep coming back.  
  
He would think having something that painful up his ass, would think being invaded like that would have been the worst part, but somehow the worst part was that it made him cum. Well, it wasn’t the worst part for his body, that was for sure, but it’s the part his mind keeps coming back to, the part that haunts him the most. He hadn’t enjoyed it. He keeps telling himself that. But the fact that he actually orgasmed under such a disgusting assault makes him ashamed like he’s never felt before.  
  
He realizes with a creeping horror that the alien is aware that he’s thinking about what had happened, when he feels it sort of… shift in his head, a pleased sound rumbling through his mind.  
  
 **Want to explore you deeper, Eddie.**  
  
His blood turns cold, his heart starts pounding. He scrambles out from under the covers and stumbles hastily across the room, ignoring the pain, just desperate to get away. Maybe outside is the answer after all. Maybe it won’t rape him in public. Maybe it won’t want to be seen. Either way, he can imagine exactly what will happen if he just stays put.  
  
 **No. Here.**  
  
His legs come to a sudden stand-still, the monster controlling his body again, and he lets out a little sound of terror. They turn him around and walk him back to his bedroom, and it feels like the closest thing to a death march as he’s ever known. He can only watch in horror as it brings him back to his bed.  
  
“Please, don’t do this,” he begs as it lays him down on his bed and he starts to feel the tendrils move under his skin.  
  
 **We liked it last time.**  
  
“No,” he retorts in a sharp hiss. “ _We_ didn’t.” What had happened was undeniably rape, and the fact that it had forced him to cum doesn’t change that.  
  
 **Liar.**  
  
The accusation sends another shock of shame through him, though he knows it’s wrong. He’s not lying.  
  
He debates briefly jumping into a lecture on consent, but the tendrils have emerged from his body and are feeling their way across his skin under his clothing, and he whimpers. One dips quickly down below his waistband and rubs over his cock, and Eddie tries to get up and scramble away. Tentacles emerge from his bare feet and lash themselves to the underside of the bed, pulling him back and flat onto his stomach again. More emerge from his wrists, wrapping around them like rope before his arms twist behind his back and the tendrils bind them together.  
  
He writhes, but another quickly emerges and wraps around his neck, tightening threateningly.  
  
 **Be still, little pet. I want to make us feel good again.**  
  
“This is wrong!” He lashes out verbally because he can barely move his body. “You can’t just do this to a person!”  
  
 **I can do whatever I want.**  
  
The tendril wraps tighter around his neck, and he takes in a quick gasp of air, not sure if it’s going to let him get another.  
  
Meanwhile the tendrils lower on his body are pushing his clothing down, just enough to expose his ass. The one on his groin is still rubbing up and down his length lazily, not wrapping around him, but just teasing his cock. Two more squirm their way between his chest and the bed, and each finds a nipple to play with.  
  
Eddie squeezes his eyes shut and prepares to just bear it. There’s nothing he can do anyway. Never in his life has he felt as helpless as he does tonight.  
  
Any thought of just bearing it flies from his head as he feels a thick shaft settle between his ass cheeks and start rubbing up and down his crack, and the terror of having that inside him again takes over.  
  
He whines fearfully and struggles again, only to have more tendrils wrap around his body and upper arms and bind themselves down to the bed.  
  
The large tentacle rubs back and forth, the tip of it sliding up his lower back and bumping against his bound hands before retreating down toward his hole, and he shudders. It tortures him for minutes on end like some sort of sick foreplay. It’s not like it needs to get itself hard. It feels plenty hard to utterly wreck him.  
  
Eventually it moves differently, sliding down, changing its angle, and seating itself up against his hole. Eddie tenses and clenches his hole tighter. He knows that’s just going to make it hurt more when it finally pushes in, but it’s an automatic reaction.  
  
Ever so slowly the shaft pushes forward, harder and harder against his hole until it finally slips inside. It’s already thick, maybe even thicker than it was last time it fucked him, and he bites down on his bedspread to muffle his scream as it pushes into him eagerly. It starts moving in hard little thrusts, but always in, never out, going deeper and deeper and Eddie lets out a sob. He can feel it working its way up into his body. It wasn’t kidding when it said it wanted to explore him deeper. It squirms inside him and he feels nauseous, while each push deeper into him sends a shot of pain through his ass, and he lets out small cries of pain.  
  
At the same time another presses against his lips, and he whimpers but doesn’t fight it as it slides into his mouth, knowing he couldn’t stop it if he tried. As expected, it heads straight down his throat, and he gags and twitches. It, too, works itself in deep, until he can feel it practically down in his chest. Saliva runs slowly past his lips.  
  
He’s already covered in sweat, tears running down his face, and this thing has only just gotten started with him.  
  
He starts writhing against his restraints when his need for air grows desperate, and the thing in his mouth pulls slowly back out, but stays hovering by his lips as he gasps for air.  
  
In his ass, the larger tendril has finally stopped, and he has no clue how far in it went, only that he feels horribly full and stretched to his limit and he groans weakly as he buries his face in the bed.  
  
 **Up.**  
  
The tendrils binding him down to the bed suddenly push his body up, and his head spins as he finds himself upright on his knees, sitting back against his heels with his arms still bound tightly behind his back. The creature is still for a moment, and Eddie looks down at himself, at the numerous black tendrils encircling his body, and the slight, uncomfortable bulge of his stomach.  
  
He feels so full, and he just wants it out.  
  
All at once it moves again, the length inside him squirming and he has to close his eyes against seeing the bulges that grow and recede in his stomach as it moves. If he hadn’t already thrown up all his stomach contents hours ago, he would now.  
  
The other tendril invades his mouth again, sliding easily into him and he moans in resignation.  
  
It doesn’t seem to actually be going for physical pleasure this time, and he wonders if it’s after the torment in his mind, if it likes making him feel small and powerless as much as it liked the pleasure it forced on him last time.  
  
But no sooner has he thought that, he feels a touch to his cock again, and his eyes fly open and look down in fear. He doesn’t want to cum again, not like this. His stomach retches at what he sees.  
  
The alien has manifested its head again, that eternal grin on its face as its tongue wraps in a coil around his cock. It slides up and down his length, its eyes upturned to watch his face.  
  
The tendril in his mouth slides out again, letting him breathe, and the voice speaks in his head.  
  
 **Let me hear you moan, Eddie, just like you did last time. We liked that.**  
  
The one up his ass suddenly pulses, making him jerk reflexively, and it finally twists to press into his prostate. Eddie bites his lip to keep himself from moaning at the sudden pleasure as his eyes roll back in his head. He doesn’t want to give this monster what it wants.  
  
But the attack continues, the length inside him twitching hard thrusts into his prostate while that warm tongue works wetly up and down his cock, and he feels his face start to get flushed. Arousal starts to stir within him, and he wrenches his eyes open and looks back down at that hideous face, hoping that’ll kill it.  
  
The alien growls, and the tongue wraps farther down, the tip of it now toying with his balls, while the tendril pushes so hard into his prostate that the pleasure is lined with pain, and a cry bursts out of him. It does it again, then again, then just keeps pounding into him, making him push his hips forward to try to escape it as he grunts and screams, and finally, moans.  
  
He can feel the creature is pleased as he finally grows hard, and its tongue keeps working him, squeezing his length, its saliva dripping down to the bed between his legs as it stimulates him in every way it has learned he can’t resist.  
  
He feels an orgasm coming again, and he squeezes his eyes shut in shame, but the creature suddenly stops, leaving him gasping and confused.  
  
 **Hmm…**  
  
He dares to wrench his eyes open and look down at it.  
  
 **If this is so sensitive,** it says in his head, giving a quick thrust to the tentacle in his ass and bringing a cry out of Eddie, **then how about this?**  
  
It’s then that he notices the small tendril playing at the head of his cock, rolling itself in his precum and undulating against his slit.  
  
His chest is still heaving in exertion, but his lungs suddenly freeze in horror as the little tendril presses down, and he feels it slide into him.  
  
He chokes out an incoherent sound as it squirms its way farther and farther inside his cock. He’s never felt anything like this before. It’s unnatural, unpleasant, and indescribable. He watches in horror as more and more of it slides into him, stretching him where he’s pretty sure he should never feel stretched. He groans, tears coming to his eyes.  
  
And then all the other motions start again, the thicker tendril pressing hard into his prostate and the tongue eagerly working his cock and balls. More tendrils tickle their way between his thighs, lap at the sensitive skin at his throat, and another slides into his open mouth and toys with his tongue.  
  
It all becomes too much. He moans and gasps, feeling the pleasure in him build and build. Finally he can feel his orgasm right on the edge, and he’s relieved it’ll be over soon. But there’s a part of the alien deep inside his cock, and his balls tighten, but he can’t cum. He groans, and the monster laughs, pleased with its discovery.  
  
It doesn’t stop. It goes and goes, thrusting hard into his ass, the pain now not even enough to put a dent in his pleasure. Even the tendril in his cock starts feeling good, squirming inside him, stimulating him in a way he’s never felt before. His cock is hard and aching, the tongue squeezing it feeling better than any pussy he’s ever fucked.   
  
Tears roll down his face, his body rocks with the sensations filling it, and he can’t stand it, can’t stand another minute of this. It’s going to kill him.  
  
He’s barely even aware of the creature laughing inside his head.  
  
 **You’re mine, Eddie. All mine.**  
  
It’s not until he feels like he may just collapse and actually die from so much stimulation that the tendril in his cock retracts in a second, and the freedom from it overtakes him so hard that he screams, his eyes clenching shut as he cums harder than he ever has.  
  
His mind goes blank, nothing but pleasure rocketing through his body as he cries out, loosing rope after rope of cum.  
  
He comes to, lying in a sweaty heap on his side across his bed, his chest still heaving, his whole body aching as sensation returns to it.  
  
He shifts uncomfortably. That powerful tendril is still deep in his ass, pulsing gently but still painful in his wrecked hole. He groans and tries to push himself up, but his limbs feel like noodles, and he collapses back to the bed. A tendril snakes up to his lips, slides inside and dips down his throat briefly before retreating again as the one in his ass starts moving, retracting slowly, leaving his body feeling empty and stretched.  
  
He moans weakly and keeps his eyes closed, shuddering in aftershocks now and then as it gradually pulls out, then retreats under his skin, and all signs of the monster are suddenly gone again.  
  
He curls up tight around himself, ignoring the shooting pain in his ass, and sobs quietly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, now I’m going places with this. If you want to see something specific, though, name it in the comments and I’ll see what I can do. ;)


	3. Chapter 3

He forces himself up before he’s really ready to move. His body screams in pain as he hikes up his briefs and trousers and stumbles desperately for the door.  
  
He can’t just lie there. Staying home is just going to lead to him getting fucked again and again. He has to find help. He has to tell someone. Maybe they can help him get somewhere safe, somewhere where they can figure this out and get the alien out of him.  
  
And there’s only one person he trusts. He knows she doesn’t care for him anymore, probably doesn’t even want to see him, but she’s all he’s got. There’s nowhere else for him to go.  
  
He stumbles through the streets in his bedclothes, oblivious to the stares he’s getting as he sweats and mutters to himself, trying to assure himself that he’ll be okay, that things will be fine again, just as soon as he gets help.  
  
**HUNGRY.**  
  
He cringes reflexively at the voice, but it’s right. He is _insanely_ hungry. He stumbles down the block and ducks into the nearest mini-mart. Just a quick detour.  
  
He snatches things off the shelves as he walks by them. A bag of chips here, pack of donuts there, a can of soup, whatever he can grab. He doesn’t even make it back to the front of the store, just drops to his knees right in the back and starts tearing into packages, stuffing food into his mouth faster than he can chew it.  
  
“Hey! You have to pay for that!”  
  
Eddie looks up, startled, a little bit of reason starting to return to his head. The cashier is standing half way down the aisle, looking dumbfounded but definitely offended. Eddie looks down at himself, at the mess he’s made, and realizes he’s still in his bedclothes. No money. He glances around quickly, looking for an escape, not sure what to do. He snatches up as many of the packages around him as he can hold in his hurry and runs. He barrels past the cashier, ignoring their yells.  
  
There’s something seriously wrong with him. He has to get out of here. He needs help.  
  
He hears a yell behind him, glances over his shoulder as he pushes open the front door, and sees the cashier slam into one of the shelves, just as a length of the alien’s black substance retracts back into his spine.  
  
He runs out into the night.  
  
He doesn’t know what time it is by the time he makes it to Anne’s apartment, but it doesn’t matter. He just needs help. The lights are all out, and he can only hope that she’s asleep, and not out somewhere else this late at night.  
  
He practically plasters himself to the door and pounds on it desperately.  
  
After a solid minute of pounding, he stops and catches his breath. “Anne! Please, open the door!” He goes back to pounding on it wildly.  
  
When the light in the stairway finally turns on, he stumbles back to the edge of the steps and falls to his knees, gasping for breath.  
  
“Annie,” he begs as the door finally opens, but it’s not Anne, it’s Dan standing at the door.  
  
“What… Eddie?”  
  
It doesn’t matter. He just needs help. “Please, help. I just- I need help.” He crawls forward on his knees, and Dan is suddenly gripping his arm and helping him to his feet.  
  
“Eddie? What the hell?” That’s Anne’s voice, and Eddie looks up past Dan’s shoulder as she comes down the stairs, wrapping herself in a bathrobe. “What are you doing here?”  
  
One last pathetic “help,” is all he manages to get out. His body is shaking. He’s an utter mess, and he knows he looks it, and he can only hope that she’s not going to just tell Dan to throw him out on the street again.  
  
“Eddie, you can’t just-“ Anne complains, but Dan is already hauling him inside and closing the door.  
  
“He’s burning up. He’s got to be sick. Let me just look at him.”  
  
They take him upstairs and Dan helps him into a chair, and Eddie sits there, shaking and sweating.  
  
“Do you… do you have anything to eat? I’m really hungry,” Eddie croaks out.  
  
Anne looks speechless.  
  
Dan just shakes his head. “Let me take your temperature first.” He walks past Anne, assumedly to get a thermometer. “We might need to get him to the hospital,” he says to her in a low voice.  
  
Anne just stands back for a minute, then seems to make up her mind that she’s not going to throw Eddie out. She steps forward and crouches down in front of Eddie’s chair. “Eddie, what’s the matter? What happened?”  
  
“I…” He’s not really even sure where to begin. It’s going to sound crazy no matter what he says. He might as well just get it over with. He swallows. “There’s… I have an…” He practically squeaks out the next word. “Alien. It’s inside of me, and… in my head.” He taps his temple with his finger frantically. “And… and it’s… doing things to me. I don’t know, I don’t know where else to go. I just need help…”  
  
“An alien.” Her voice is flat. She doesn’t believe him.  
  
“Yes! An alien! A monster! A parasite! Something!” His voice is strained and desperate.  
  
She stands up and steps back away from him, her face unimpressed as Dan comes back with a thermometer in his hand. He looks back and forth between them questioningly, then quickly holds the thermometer out to Eddie.  
  
“Hold that under your tongue. Should only take a minute.”  
  
Eddie looks at it blankly. This isn’t going to be the solution to his problem. But he nods, takes it, and puts it under his tongue and tries to sit still.  
  
“He says he has an alien in him,” Anne tells Dan, sounding very much like she’s done with Eddie’s bullshit already.  
  
“Hallucinations. Paranoia. Probably brought on by the fever,” Dan answers. “I think we should get him to the hospital.”  
  
The voice in Eddie’s head laughs, and he cringes, dropping the thermometer from his mouth.  
  
**They don’t believe you, Eddie.**  
  
Eddie waves his hand by his head, as if that would chase the voice away. “I _know_ they don’t believe me,” he hisses at it.  
  
“Who are you talking to?” Anne is starting to actually look concerned.  
  
“Eddie, are you hearing voices?” Dan has looked concerned the entire time.  
  
**Do you want them to see?**  
  
“No!” Eddie yelps.  
  
**Yes you do. That’s why you came here. So that they would know.**  
  
Okay, yes, it’s not wrong. But that doesn’t mean he wants them to see it probably have its way with him right here.  
  
He starts to feel that tingle under his skin and he throws himself out of his chair and scrambles across the kitchen. “No, no no nonono.”  
  
“Eddie!”  
  
“Call an ambulance. Quickly!” Dan hurries after Eddie as he scrambles away.  
  
Eddie crawls his way into a corner, still muttering “no” over and over, but he can feel the tendrils emerging.  
  
**They can’t help you, Eddie. You’re still mine.**  
  
“Just leave me alone,” Eddie sobs. “I didn’t do anything to you!”  
  
The tendrils seep through his clothing, waving in the air, and Eddie lets out a whimper, trying to curl up in the corner of the kitchen.  
  
Suddenly one shoots from his chest, smacks into the wall between two windows, and pulls. Eddie’s body is pulled up and rapidly toward the wall. He’s slammed into it and groans in pain as he hears Anne scream.  
  
Eddie pushes against the wall in front of him, trying to free himself.  
  
**You’re mine, Eddie, and soon they will see that.**  
  
He lets out a sob as he feels a tendril snake down his back toward his ass.  
  
“You have to go,” he barely manages to rasp over his shoulder to Anne and her boyfriend. “Get out of here! It’s not safe!” He never should have brought this thing here. God, he’s so stupid.  
  
He clenches his eyes shut, his fingers scraping at the surface of the wall in front of him as the tendril continues its trip toward his ass. It rubs up and down his crack as others set to work undressing him, and he struggles weakly, manages to push himself a few inches away from the wall, only to be slammed up against it again.  
  
He doesn’t know if Dan and Annie are still there, if they’re watching this, and he doesn’t want to know. He’s helpless as his trousers slide down to his knees and his shirt hikes up under his arms as a tendril emerges from the middle of his back and reaches for the back of his head. It forms around it, gripping his skull, and pulls his head backward.  
  
The tentacle teasing his now bare ass repositions itself, and Eddie braces himself with a cringe. At the same time, another thick tentacle comes to meet his lips, and pushes insistently at them.  
  
They push in at the same time, and Eddie screams around the one in his mouth until it slithers its way down his throat and silences him. The one in his ass starts pounding hard.  
  
He’s silenced for a painful thirty seconds as it keeps pounding him violently before the tentacle in his mouth pulls out and lets him grunt and moan and wail loudly.  
  
It hurts. Not just because it’s shoving something far too big up his ass again, not just because it’s practically tearing his body apart, but because it’s tearing everything else apart too. The last shreds of his dignity, his pride, his privacy. The only person who might have helped him has been been either scared off or is watching him get completely torn down.  
  
He bites his lip and squeezes his eyes shut, holding back sobs.  
  
It’s not going for pleasure this time, not even trying to fuck with his brain. It’s after pure humiliation. Eddie just wishes this stupid alien would finally kill him.  
  
**Never kill you, Eddie. Need you.**  
  
It sure has a funny way of showing it.  
  
Its pace changes suddenly, the pounding in his ass giving way to slow, deep thrusts and uncomfortable undulations.  
  
He feels a slimy wetness slide up his back, and then his shirt gets pulled off over his head completely. He tries to look over his shoulder, but it won’t let him twist his head far enough to see what the monster is doing.  
  
The tongue continues up his spine, slides around his neck, and encircles it. His head is still pulled backward by the appendage holding it, and there’s nothing he can do as the tip of the tongue slides up and down his throat.  
  
The appendage pulls harder, tilting his head back to the point of pain and Eddie lets out a cry between grunts as the creature continues working itself in his ass slowly. The next thing he knows the tongue is retreating and there are sharp teeth at his neck, scraping lightly against his skin. He shivers reflexively. If it hadn’t just told him that it would never kill him, he’d be sure he’d be a goner now.  
  
The tongue laps at him as the teeth close in, sharp tips pressing lightly into the soft skin of his throat. His breath stutters to a stop. Hopefully this thing knows enough about humans to know that puncturing him there will lead to massive amounts of blood loss. While he kind of wants to die right now, he realizes he doesn’t actually want to die like this. He doesn’t want to die while something fucks him.  
  
He breathes again when the teeth retreat, scraping threateningly along his skin until it’s just the tongue left again, and it snakes its way up his chin toward his mouth.  
  
Eddie groans and tries to keep his lips pressed together tightly but suddenly the teeth are around his face, scraping against his jaw and cheeks, and the voice speaks in his head.  
  
**Open.**  
  
He knows it can force its way in easily, that it doesn’t actually need him to open his mouth, but he reminds himself that it’s no longer just exploring his body and discovering the pleasure it can create, it’s working to humiliate and dominate him now. It’s staking its claim.  
  
The tip of the tongue slithers back and forth across his lips, and the teeth close in, threatening to pierce into his skin, and with a whimper he opens his mouth. The creature laughs aloud as the tongue slides in. The teeth remain there, the creature’s face practically enveloping Eddie’s and he doesn’t dare open his eyes to see the horror in front of him.  
  
The tongue slithers and moves in his mouth, toying with his own tongue in perhaps some sick approximation of a kiss, and it’s so hard for Eddie to just keep his mouth open when it disgusts him so much. When it pushes toward the back of his throat, Eddie immediately gags.  
  
The angle of his head makes this worse, makes his throat feel tighter, and makes the intrusion into it almost painful. His stomach heaves and his throat spasms, but there’s nothing he can do as it snakes deeper into him, probably going even farther in than it had last time the creature did this. Eddie can feel drool run down from the corner of his mouth, and he’s not honestly sure if it’s his, or the monster’s. He presses against the wall, his eyes still squeezed shut, his body jerking to the limited extent that it can in a helpless, wordless plea for air.  
  
“Police! Don't move!”  
  
Eddie barely hears the yell, but everything about the creature suddenly changes. The tendril in his ass stops its slow, torturous movements, the tendrils wrapped around him tense and tighten suddenly, his insides twist uncomfortably, and the teeth move against his face, the creature probably tilting its head to see who has arrived.  
  
In the shocked silence as the police try to figure out whatever the hell they’re seeing and the monster waits for them to make their move, a few thoughts cross Eddie’s mind. First, he doesn’t have the faintest clue how this will play out. If they start shooting, which honestly, they probably will when they get over their shock at seeing this horror show, will they kill the creature? Will they kill him? Is it even possible to shoot the creature without shooting him? He doesn’t even know the full extent of what this thing is capable of. Will it hide? Will it fight?  
  
His second thought is that he honestly kind of wishes the police never came here. Even if he doesn’t die from this, the idea of being rescued from this creature is, presently at least, overshadowed by the fact that he really, really doesn’t want to be seen like this. He’s naked, there’s a tendril up his ass, a tongue still down his throat, and what the hell kind of news story is _this_ going to make? At least there’s nobody taking pictures.  
  
The creature moves suddenly and Eddie twitches in surprise. The tongue jerks out of his mouth, the teeth retreat from his face, the appendage lets go of the back of his head, and he feels a large amount of the creature’s substance emerge from his body.  
  
His body moves next, not of his own doing, but of the creature’s. He’s moved away from the wall, and the black substance crawls its way rapidly across and out of his naked skin, enveloping him completely. He nearly stops breathing as it moves quickly up his neck and envelops his entire head.  
  
It’s an odd feeling, one he barely has time to think about, and isn’t sure if he’s really capable of processing without it breaking his mind. He’s completely surrounded, every inch of him covered in the alien’s body. It’s plastered over his face, but somehow he’s still able to breathe. That’s one of the few saving graces of whatever the hell is happening now, because the feeling of it pressed in all around him is so stifling and invading that he has to take desperate, gasping breaths as he tries to push down his panic.  
  
His body is being moved by the creature around him, and it’s only as he manages to force some of the panic out of his head that he realizes that he can see through its eyes.  
  
He watches helplessly as the creature throws police officers about the apartment like wet rags before flinging itself out a window and escaping into the night. It smashes its way through the city, causing far more damage than is really necessary to get anywhere, and when it seems to think it has gotten them far enough away, it climbs its way to the top of a tall apartment building and deposits Eddie, naked and terrified, onto the roof.  
  
Eddie’s barely able to process, or deal with, everything that just happened. He doesn’t sob, he doesn’t make a sound. He feels numb. He curls up on his side, shaking with nerves, and covers his head with his arms, just wishing all this would go away.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Right, so I didn’t think things through here, and with what happened in the last chapter, shit got serious real quick while I was trying to write this chapter. I really just want to focus on Eddie and Venom here, not everything that is inevitably going to happen after a cop gets killed. So I’ve gone back and edited the end of the last chapter, because I want Eddie to just kind of be able to live with this while keeping his head down, and not get into the legal ramifications of biting off a police officer’s head when Eddie can definitely be identified. Venom will just have to eat heads later, when they can't link it to Eddie.
> 
> You don’t even need to go back and read it, I literally just removed the bits that mention shooting and the guy getting killed.

Eddie doesn’t know how long he lies there before he finally moves. It’s the cold that finally gets to him. The alien had left him completely naked, and even after the air had dried the sweat from his skin, he still feels the cold seeping into his body.  
  
Slowly, he gets up, and moves the short distance to the low wall along the edge of the roof and looks down. He quickly pulls himself back from the edge, his heart rate speeding up. He’s too high. Next he eyes the doorway to what he assumes is a stairwell on the other side of the roof, but he looks down at his naked body and groans. He sits down against the low wall and pulls his knees up to his chest. How is he going to get out of here? He can’t exactly go strolling around nude.  
  
He tries to focus on just getting home, tries not to think about the larger situation right now, but he can’t help but feel completely helpless. He’s host to an alien parasite that has shown a liking for fucking him against his will, and now the only person he trusted to help him probably won’t touch him with a ten foot pole. He doesn’t know what to do from here, where he could go, who could help. He’s truly alone, and he can’t handle this by himself.  
  
He tries again to clear his head. Focus on the problem at hand first. He’ll deal with the rest later.  
  
He wracks his brain for some sort of plan, some way he could get some clothing or anything to cover himself enough to at least get across town without drawing attention to himself. If the situation were different, he would probably resort to calling Anne for help, begging her to come get him. But he couldn’t do that anyway. He can’t bring her into all this again. Nevermind that he doesn’t even have his phone.  
  
The most viable option he comes up with pretty much just involves swallowing his pride, making his way home nude, and probably getting arrested for it. But he’s not about to make any bets on what the creature will do in that situation.  
  
“I need to get home,” he finally says aloud, not really sure if he has any other way to communicate with the alien in his body. He hates that he’s dropped to the level of having to ask it, but he doesn’t know what else to do. It got him here, and the very least it can do is get him down again. “Without drawing attention,” he adds.  
  
His heart starts pounding in fear as the alien emerges from his shoulder and forms that gruesome, toothy head. It curls around and looks him straight in the face, and Eddie silently begs whatever sick powers that be that it won’t rape him on a rooftop next.  
  
It grins, and Eddie feels sick. He cringes, turning away and closing his eyes so he won’t have to see it. For a moment it doesn’t say anything, and he forces back a whimper.  
  
 **If you’re cold, I can warm you.**  
  
Eddie jerks in fear as it starts emerging all across his body again, slowly enveloping him.  
  
“No,” he squeaks out. “I just… I want to go home.” Not that there’s really anything to look forward to there, just more time alone with the world’s worst bodymate, but at least he could get clothing and his phone and maybe start thinking about his next steps.  
  
The alien substance keeps moving across his skin, but instead of forming itself into the alien’s body around him, it forms into something approximating a shirt and trousers. He stares down at himself.  
  
“Okay,” he says quietly. It all looks a little bit slimy for clothing, but it’s what the creature’s giving him, and he supposes it’s better than being stuck inside it completely while it flings itself across the city, destroying cars and building faces as it goes. And it’s definitely better than it just deciding to rape him again. If he sticks to the shadows, maybe nobody will notice. “Okay.”  
  
He mentally steadies himself and forces himself to stand up shakily, trying to ignore the all too familiar feeling of the alien against his skin, and he limps slowly toward the stairwell. As he walks, the creature’s head retracts back into his shoulder and it forms the likeness of shoes around his feet, and Eddie takes a quiet breath and forces himself to keep moving.  
  
It’s not easy, and not comfortable. His ass still hurts from being fucked three separate times in the last twelve or so hours, and he’s sure he looks like absolute hell. He’s really going to have to keep to the shadows if he doesn’t want to attract attention.  
  
It’s as he limps up to the door and grabs the door handle that he feels the alien move around him, its substance caressing his ass closer, forming around it, moving against his hole and he freezes, his grip on the doorknob tightening hard.  
  
He whimpers. Not now. Please, not now. He thought it was helping him for once. He’s so distracted by the panic working its way through his chest that it catches him off guard when the creature suddenly backs off and goes back to acting more or less like clothing.  
  
The aching pain in his ass is suddenly gone. He shifts his body to make sure, but it doesn’t hurt anymore. “What was that?” Eddie asks quietly.  
  
 **You didn’t want to draw attention.**  
  
“What did you do?”  
  
 **Fixed the damage.**  
  
Eddie blinks. “You can… heal me?”  
  
 **Yes.**  
  
Eddie doesn’t quite know how to respond. He pushes down the urge to thank it. It caused that damage in the first place. It fucked him against his will. Just because it’s playing nice for the moment doesn’t mean he’s going to thank it for cleaning up a small portion of the mess it made to begin with.  
  
He opens the door and starts shakily down the stairs.  
  
He avoids lit streets, sticks to the shadows of buildings, even makes his way through some sketchy back alleys on his way home. With the creature all around him like this, though, he can’t stop thinking about it, as much as he would like to. He’s been aware of its presence ever since it first took advantage of him in his bathroom, but now it feels a little more real, a little less like a fever dream. He realizes that’s a weird way to feel when he’s wearing an alien parasite as clothing, but its constant physical presence surrounding him starts making him feel extremely uncomfortable by its silence in his head.  
  
He’s half way home when he finally speaks to it again, his voice shaking slightly. “What is it you want from me?”  
  
 **You are my host. Think of yourself as my ride.**  
  
Eddie almost stops. Yeah, he’s been ridden alright. He shudders and forces himself to keep his feet moving.  
  
“Yes, but what do you _want_? Please tell me you’re not like… using my body to reproduce or something.” He thinks again of the _Alien_ movies. He’s fairly certain this thing hasn’t been laying eggs in him, but he wouldn’t bet on that.  
  
The creature hums almost thoughtfully in his head.  
  
 **No.**  
  
“Then _WHY_?” Eddie hisses. He doesn’t want to tempt it, or antagonize it, but he figures while it’s behaving itself and speaking to him almost civilly, he ought to figure out as much about it as he can. He might be stuck with it for a little while longer until he figures out how to get it out of him, and the more he knows about it, the better he might be able to handle it.  
  
 **It feels good.**  
  
Eddie does stop at that. It’s somehow such an unexpectedly innocent-sounding answer, despite the demon-like quality of its voice. Where’s the villain’s tirade? Where’s the monologue about how it needs his pain to survive, about how it feeds on his suffering?  
  
“It _hurts_ ,” he retorts under his breath, forcing himself to pick up his pace again.  
  
 **But the pleasure is so much more. You feel it too.**  
  
“It’s called rape,” Eddie says bluntly, but still quietly. “You know what that means?”  
  
He thinks he feels the creature go rifling through his mind for a moment and he shakes his head, hoping to shake off the strange feeling.  
  
 **You don’t want it,** the voice finally comes back. **I know this. But it doesn’t matter because you are mine.**  
  
Eddie doesn’t even know where to begin arguing that one. He reminds himself that he’s talking to an alien. It probably sees him as he sees a bug.  
  
 **You probably don’t want us to destroy your planet either,** it continues. **But you are not in control here.**  
  
Eddie stops again at that. “…Destroy?” He glances over his shoulder then ducks into a nearby empty alley. The alien responds to his action by forming its face on the end of some tendrils emerging out of his shoulder again. Eddie regrets having to see it once more.  
  
 **You didn’t find us, Eddie. We found you.**

  
*****

  
His temporary clothing sinks into his body the moment he closes the door to his apartment, and Eddie dashes for his bedroom to dig up something real to wear, before the alien decides it wants to have some fun with him again. The sun is just about to rise, and he hasn’t gotten any proper sleep all night, or last night, now that he thinks about it, but he’s not about to try now. Not if it means his new parasite might get bored and try something again.  
  
Somewhat encouraged by the last hour or so of it behaving itself, he figures his best chance now is to keep moving, keep himself active, stay out of the house. He knows he can’t stop it if it wants to fuck him again, but maybe he can at least keep it occupied so it won’t think of it. He’ll just have to be careful not to antagonize it.  
  
He has three goals he can focus on. One, get this thing the hell out of him. He really doesn’t want to just wait around for it to break him down until jumping off a bridge seems like his only option. But he’s got to be very careful with how he handles this. He hardly dares even think about it, lest the creature sense what he wants to do. If it felt like it needed to assert itself over him just for trying to get Annie’s help, what might it do if he actually discovers a way to get it out of him?  
  
He leaves that goal off for now in favor of goals two and three, too afraid that trying to threaten its ability to stay with him might lead it to do something even more drastic to him.  
  
Goal two is to tear down Carlton Drake. Because really, this whole shit show is his fault. The creature wants his rocket, but he doesn’t think it has any attachment to the man himself, so maybe he can manage that one without pissing this thing off.   
  
Goal three is figuring out how the hell to stop an alien race from destroying Earth. He thinks that one might be a bit beyond him, and he puts it aside with goal one. The last thing he wants to do is piss this thing off, and trying to foil its plans will probably piss it off about as much as trying to get it out of him.  
  
He remembers its warning, as it told him briefly of its plan to use Drake’s rocket to get more of its kind, that if he cooperated, he might just survive. He’s not really sure if surviving is worth cooperating with this thing, if surviving means staying bonded to it.  But at the same time, he’s terrified of going against it, because it has very clearly shown him what it is willing to do to him. Dying is one thing. Being an alien’s personal sex toy is something else entirely.  
  
Well, okay, so he has goal number two. Maybe he can get away with that one, and if he’s very very lucky, maybe it’ll lead him to some answers for goals number one and three. Worst case scenario- well, he doesn’t really want to think about the worst case in this situation.  
  
He finishes pulling his sweatshirt over his head and picks up his phone from where he had left it next to his bed. It looks like he had missed six calls from Anne, and had gotten a text from Dora Skirth several hours ago. He stares unmoving at the notifications.  
  
The thought crosses his mind that if anybody can help him, Dr. Skirth can. He doesn’t trust her like he trusts Annie, but admittedly she’s probably a lot more prepared to deal with an alien symbiote. She has been one of the ones studying them, after all.  
  
He chases the thoughts out of his mind quickly. If the creature catches on, he doesn’t doubt that it’ll promptly try to put him back in his place. He has to focus on other things. He debates next if he dares to call Annie back. He doesn’t want her to think he’s dead or something, but apparently his new parasite is extremely possessive. His finger hovers over the call button. The fact that she called him after everything she probably saw makes his heart clench. Does she care after all?  
  
He shakes his head. He can’t get her involved in this. Going to her in the first place was a mistake.  
  
He looks down at his phone again. Goal two. Just focus on goal two. If he can get these pictures to the network, maybe he can redeem himself and tear down Carlton Drake at the same time. He starts toward the door.  
  
 **Eddie, you need rest.**  
  
“Yeah, whose fault is that?” Eddie’s words come automatically, without much thought.  
  
It forces him to turn around and move toward his bed, and he starts to panic at the memory of the last time it did this. It quickly relinquishes control of his body as his heart rate rockets.  
  
 **You are starting to harm yourself.**  
  
“I’m touched that you care,” he says with a weak touch of sarcasm, and he quickly turns away from his bed again. He doesn’t think he ever plans on willingly going back there while this thing is still in his body.  
  
 **I need you healthy,** it corrects. **I can’t function well with a sick host.**  
  
“Should have thought of that before you started raping me,” he mutters under his breath. And it’s in that moment that he finally realizes that he’s sort of been taunting it, and that was definitely a mistake.  
  
An amorphous arm of the creature shoots out of his back, grabs the wall above his bed, and yanks him violently across the room and onto his mattress. He lands on the soft surface with a startled yell and covers his head with his arms defensively.  
  
 **I am not the one making you sick. Your refusal to rest is.**  
  
Eddie struggles against the force holding him down, his heart beating faster and faster in panic again, but it doesn’t let him go this time. It’s the growl of frustration that he hears rumble through his head that makes him realize he’s definitely pushing his luck. He goes still all at once, putting his arms in front of him, palms open in a gesture of reluctant assent.  
  
“Okay, okay. Just don’t… don’t do anything to me, okay?”  
  
The creature continues holding him down, but he feels some of the force of it relax a little, and he fumbles blindly for a pillow, slides it under his head, and puts his hands up in the same deescalating gesture.   
  
“I’ll try to sleep.”  
  
He knows he’s not going to be able to, but if it’ll make the creature happy, he will try.  
  
Three hours later and still awake, he groans and tries to roll over restlessly, but finds his back is still pinned to the bed and he grabs the pillow out from under his head and throws it over his face instead.  
  
 **You are not sleeping.**  
  
Eddie resists the urge to say something sarcastic. “I _can’t_ sleep,” he says instead.  
  
 **Something is wrong with you.**  
  
Understatement of the century. Eddie runs through about ten things to say to that in his head, and tosses each aside as too flippant or something that would probably not make the creature very happy. Before he comes up with something, the creature speaks again.  
  
 **I will exhaust you more, and then you will sleep.**  
  
Eddie’s breath hitches and his heart starts racing again as he feels a tendril play at his stomach, pushing his shirts up toward his chest. He’s pretty sure that less psychological trauma is the key he’s actually looking for here, not being more tired, but all reasonable thought flies from his head as more tendrils emerge and start working at his trousers.  
  
“No no no no, please, no,” he begs. “Let me get up. I can take a sleeping pill!”  
  
 **I will take care of this myself.**  
  
Eddie clenches his eyes shut and squirms as it works his trousers down again.  
  
“This is the reason I can’t sleep,” he says desperately. “If you keep doing this to me, it’s just going to make sleeping harder.”  
  
The tendrils stop moving and Eddie takes a breath.  
  
 **Why?**  
  
“It’s very… traumatizing… Everything you’re doing is making me afraid.”  
  
The creature seems to take a moment to think about that.  
  
 **I don’t want to stop feeling good. But if it is causing you so much harm, then I will do it less often.**  
  
That’s not exactly the response Eddie would have liked to hear, but it is a step up. Still, he doesn’t think that really helps. He’ll never know when it’s coming, he’ll always be worried about being at the mercy of the creature within him.  
  
“H-how often are we talking here?”  
  
It is silent for a moment.  
  
 **Only once a day. By the end of the day you will know you can sleep without me bothering you.**  
  
“Oh god,” Eddie moans under his breath. Even once a day is far more than he thinks he can handle. “I don’t think-“  
  
 **You are not in control here. I will not mess with you for the rest of the day, so sleep.**  
  
Eddie bites his tongue at the annoyed tone. “Just… just let me get a sleeping pill. Please.”  
  
 **Fine.**  
  
It finally releases him from the bed and he pushes himself up quickly, pulls up his trousers, and goes to fetch a pill and a glass of water. He reluctantly returns to his bed and lies down. He just has to appease it for now. Soon he’ll find a way to get rid of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don’t worry, you have not seen the last of the monsterfucking. I guess I just needed to get some plot development out of the way. More porn next chapter.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promised porn, and for a while there it looked like this was going to turn out to be another plot-only chapter, but I didn’t want to go back on my word, so this one ended up kind of long. So enjoy this offering of mostly plot with bonus monsterfucking at the end. ;)

After enough hours of sleep to satisfy the creature and allow the drowsiness of the sleeping pill to wear off, Eddie is up, and after clearing out the rest of what he had in his fridge in an effort to satisfy that furious hunger that keeps coming back, he’s out of his apartment and on his way to the network building. He feels a little better, at least for now, knowing that the creature promised not to fuck with him again today. The sleep didn’t hurt, either. He’s surprised he didn’t wake up from some alien-related nightmare, but honestly he’s going to chalk that one up to the sleeping pill.  
  
He has his phone with the images, he has a plan, and for now he’s just going to try to pretend he doesn’t have an evil parasite, and he’s going to go about his life like he normally would.  
  
But it doesn’t end up going as well as he had hoped. Richard won’t let him get past the lobby, won’t even take his phone and pass it on to the higher-ups, and Eddie just barely manages to get out of there before the creature tries to eat the man. He’s horrified by the creature’s suggestion to do so, but doesn’t doubt it is being honest when it says it would bite his head off. He hurries out the door, sweating nervously, having barely dodged having the alien show itself in broad daylight.  
  
Part of him actually wishes it would show itself here. Part of him wants other people to know about this creature, because then maybe someone who could help him might see. But he doesn’t trust it, and he’s terrified. He doesn’t know what it’ll do around other people, especially those who might put their freedom at risk. He doesn’t know what would happen to his own life if he’s found out as being a host to an alien parasite. And to add to it all, now he’s terrified that it’s going to decide to eat someone at the drop of a hat.  
  
He gets back on his motorcycle, ready to get away from people while he figures out this new development, but his muscles freeze suddenly.  
  
 **We need to eat, Eddie.**  
  
“We ate right before we came here,” he says weakly, not realizing he’s using the same _we_ as the creature just did.  
  
 **No, something fresh. Something _alive_.**  
  
Eddie swallows and lets out a little whimper, but his head rotates without his permission and his eyes start scanning the people around him, the creature controlling his body to scope out potential prey.  
  
“You can’t eat _people_!” Eddie says forcefully but in a low voice.  
  
 **I can do whatever I want.**  
  
“No,” he stresses, “if you eat people, it’s called murder, and the police come after you.” Somehow he has to get it through this thing’s head that there are consequences, and it doesn’t just have free reign to do whatever it wants.  
  
 **I can handle police.**  
  
“Guns?” Eddie challenges. “You won’t be having so much fun when they start shooting you.”  
  
He feels that strange feeling in his brain again, memories and bits of knowledge popping up out of nowhere, like flashes of thoughts, but not ones he conjured up himself. It’s looking through his mind again.  
  
 **Projectile weapons can’t hurt me.**  
  
Eddie groans. He doesn’t want to become a fugitive. “They won’t stop. They’ll just keep sending bigger guns, better teams, stronger weapons, until you can’t handle them.”  
  
 **Sounds like free snack delivery.**  
  
Eddie nearly suffers an aneurysm right then and there. He grits his teeth, starts his bike, and cranks the gas. He needs to get out of here.  
  
 **FOOD, Eddie.**  
  
“I _know_ ,” he says. “I’ll find you something.”  
  
He wracks his brain for the best option. It wants something alive, and he refuses to let that something be human. Pets aren’t an option either, and he doesn’t particularly want to go hunting city rats. But seafood. You can buy seafood live. Maybe that’ll satisfy it. He just has to find the nearest seafood market.  
  
He’s almost there, weaving his way as quickly as he can between the cars of the evening traffic rush, when he hears an annoyed sound from the alien and it hits the break on his bike.  
  
 **NOW, Eddie.**  
  
It starts emerging and enveloping him before the bike is even fully stopped.  
  
“No, no, no, no! We’re almost there!”  
  
 **I’m tired of this. Your body can’t sustain me much longer, and you are far too good a match to throw out so soon.**  
  
It deposits his bike carelessly on the side of the street, and Eddie hears people scream as it stands up to its full height.  
  
Eddie continues begging it desperately to stop, but it catches the nearest person, bites their head off, and that is when Eddie mentally checks out.

  
*****

  
When he comes back to himself, the creature must be back inside his body. The sun is setting. He doesn’t know where he is, just that he’s alone and wet and cold. He sits up and looks around. He’s on some large concrete platform, surrounded on all sides by water. He looks behind him, then up. The Golden Gate Bridge. He’s out in the bay, under the bridge. He puts his head in his hands. He doesn’t remember what happened. He only knows that he feels different now, a little stronger, a little less worn out. He doesn’t want to think about that too hard, but the memory of the creature biting that person’s head off comes back, and he heaves suddenly.  
  
He ends up on his hands and knees, throwing up what’s left of what he ate before he left his apartment, until his stomach is empty and nothing more comes up.  
  
He groans miserably and crawls a short distance away before collapsing back on the concrete. He doesn’t talk to the creature, doesn’t want to acknowledge that that murdering beast even exists, and he thinks maybe he’ll just stay here, away from people, if he can help it.  
  
The air blowing over the water is cool, and Eddie starts shivering as the sky darkens.  
  
 **Eddie.**  
  
Eddie cringes with a whimper.  
  
 **Eddie, you are cold.**  
  
Eddie jerks as the creature’s substance starts emerging through his clothing, covering his body in a thin layer. It’s warm, but he continues shivering, mostly out of fear now. When it has enveloped him up to his neck, he starts hyperventilating and struggling. He can’t stand the feel of it, even with clothing on.  
  
It lets him move freely, and he gets up off the ground and stumbles over to the foot of the bridge, as if he could actually get away from it. The creature sinks back under his skin, and he falls back against the structure rising out of the platform, slides down to the ground, and puts his head in his hands.  
  
He really needs to rethink this. He had hoped he could just lay low, slide under the radar with this thing until he figured out how to get rid of it, but that’s not going to fly if it decides to go on random, unprovoked murder sprees. He’s terrified of what it will do to him if he angers it in any way, though. Part of him thinks that under the circumstances, he should be willing to sacrifice his own wellbeing in order to save other people’s lives. He’s fairly confident his own life isn’t at risk, but that doesn’t mean it won’t continue to rape and hurt him. And that’s what stops him every time. He’s scared.  
  
He realizes his hands are shaking, and he tries to force them still. He tries to focus. He’s been avoiding thinking about this so the creature doesn’t catch on that he’s trying to get rid of it, but surely it knows already. And if he never even thinks about it, how does he plan on ever getting anywhere to that end? He can’t just wait for someone to magically show up and take this parasite away for him. It doesn’t work like that.  
  
He takes a stuttering inhale. He just has to go for it. Like ripping off a bandaid. …But probably 300 times worse. But how?  
  
Dr. Skirth. She’s probably the best place to start. He pulls out his phone and digs up her number.  
  
He tries not to think of the creature as he pushes the call button and puts the phone to his ear, but his body is tense, and he fully expects it to lash out and stop him at any moment.  
  
The phone rings, and rings, and rings. Finally he hits her voicemail again, and his mind completely blanks on how to condense explaining all this into a message that would actually make sense. He hangs up. The creature hasn’t made a move, hasn’t even said anything. He takes another deep breath. Now what?  
  
The thought crosses his mind of walking straight into the Life Foundation, of turning himself over to Drake’s lab. They could probably get it out of him. But surely that’s a death sentence. Drake wouldn’t hesitate to kill him any more than he would all those homeless people he’d tricked into volunteering for tests. He hates the situation he’s in, but he’d hate dying at Drake's hands more than anything else.   
  
But who else would be able to contain this creature? It threw police officers around like rag dolls, it bit off at least one person’s head, and it seems fairly certain that it’s immune to being shot. If it can survive guns, what else can it survive?  
  
He thinks about calling 911 anyway, about telling them to send in a SWAT team or something, but even if they believed him about this, he doubts he’d be able to communicate the full extent of this thing’s abilities, or how they would be able to contain it before it got away.  
  
Eddie slumps back against the concrete behind him, feeling helpless. Drake’s lab might not be the safest option for him, but it’s probably the safest option for the rest of the city. And if it decides to go on a killing rampage there… well, maybe it would at least get Drake too. The question is, will the creature let him get there?  
  
He stands up slowly. He looks down the bridge away from the city, toward where the Life Foundation building is perched on the hillside. It’s pretty far away. He glances back toward the city. He’s not far from the shore, and could probably swim that if he really tried. But then he’d be soaking wet all over again, and it’s a long damn walk across the bridge and to the lab. He heaves a sigh. He’s not entirely sure where his bike got left, and even if he could find it, he’d bet it’s been impounded by now.  
  
He won’t ask this thing for help. He _won’t_. He’d rather stay here and freeze.  
  
He sits down again. He’s surprised it hasn’t said anything, with all the thinking he’s been doing. Maybe it can’t read his mind that easily. Maybe it’s just not paying attention.  
  
His body is still shaking with cold and nerves, and he takes a deep breath, leans his head back against the structure behind him, and closes his eyes. He thinks of the Eckhart Tolle CD he had tried the other night. He’s been stressing himself the fuck out. With good reason, to be fair, but he thinks maybe he could handle this situation a little better if he were calmer. He’s never been very good with the whole meditation thing, but maybe Mrs. Chen’s right. Maybe it’ll work if he really gives it a chance. He takes another deep breath and tries to relax.  
  
 **This is boring.**  
  
Eddie twitches violently.   
  
**Let’s go home.**  
  
It envelops him quickly, stands up, and starts effortlessly climbing up the leg of the bridge. At the top, it flings itself over the railing onto the sidewalk, then sinks back into Eddie’s body. Eddie groans and stands up slowly. Well… That was easy. But of course it’s going to leave him to walk back himself. At least he’s wearing real clothes and can take a cable car this time.  
  
He looks toward the city. He doesn’t really want to go home. He turns and looks toward the other end of the bridge. Maybe it’s worth a try. He starts walking.  
  
 **You’re going the wrong direction.**  
  
Eddie wonders again if it’s somehow just not paying attention to his thoughts. “Isn’t it about time you got to work on your whole planetary destruction plan?” Maybe he can distract it from his true objective, maybe he can trick it into actually wanting to go to the Life Foundation.  
  
 **Not yet. Riot is still missing.**  
  
“…Riot?”  
  
 **Team leader.**  
  
“O…kay…” Eddie keeps walking anyway.  
  
 **You want to take us to the lab.**  
  
Eddie’s stride falters. So it does know.  
  
 **I don’t want to go back there.**  
  
Eddie stops and his knees feel weak. Does he dare keep trying? He’s afraid again. And yet… It’s still not doing anything to stop him. He takes another step. A tendril suddenly wraps around his ankles, pulls them together, and Eddie falls flat on his face.  
  
 **No.**  
  
Eddie pushes himself painfully up to his hands and knees. He looks forward at the long span of bridge he’ll have to cross to get to the Life Foundation. He’s never going to make it there if this thing doesn’t want him to. He’s powerless in his own body.  
  
He doesn’t know if it can sense his acceptance of the situation, but it releases his ankles a moment later, and he stands up slowly. Eddie turns around and goes home with his tail between his legs.

  
*****

  
He’s mere steps away from the door to his shitty apartment when the creature forces him to stop.  
  
 **Do not go in.**  
  
“What?” He squeaks weakly. “You’re the one who wanted me to go home.”  
  
 **There are people inside.**  
  
Eddie’s first thought is that someone is stealing his stuff. He wouldn’t say he has particularly nice stuff, but it’s stuff that he definitely doesn’t have the money to replace right now.  
  
The creature’s hold on his body was only momentary, and he powers forward, jams his key in the lock, and bursts into his apartment. The lights are out, and everything’s quiet. Doesn’t look like anybody’s actively stealing anything. Maybe the creature was wrong. How would it know, anyway? He closes the door and flicks on the light.  
  
Three people stand up from various places behind furniture, and two point weapons at him. Eddie glances down at the red laser dots on his chest, and throws his arms in the air.  
  
 **Who the hell are these guys?**  
  
Eddie’s too scared to answer. A man with a bald head steps toward him casually. “Hello, Eddie. I’m going to need Mr. Drake’s property back.”  
  
Eddie’s mind races, but his tongue feels numb.  
  
“Where’s the bug, Eddie?”  
  
He wants the alien, Eddie realizes. This isn’t exactly an optimal situation, but he was ready to go to the Life Foundation anyway, so maybe this is his chance. Maybe they’re prepared to contain this thing, and he can be rid of it. He doesn’t even care if Drake further destroys the miserable remains of his life a this point. He wants this alien out of him.  
  
 **This is stupid. I’ll take care of-**  
  
“I have it! It’s in me,” Eddie blurts out desperately, and three things happen in the span of about as many seconds. One, the alien growls in annoyance. Two, both men aiming tasers at Eddie fire them off, sending rather painful electricity jolting through his body. And three, the alien’s substance extends rapidly out of both his arms, grabs the heads of the two men tasing him, and smashes their skulls together.  
  
It mostly controls his body and uses extensions of itself to fight them, and Eddie can do little other than watch helplessly. As more men come, however, it moves into full alien mode and completely covers him in its substance.  
  
It murders them. It murders them all. And then it bites their heads off and piles the bodies on one side of the room and the heads on the other. If Eddie hadn’t already thrown up all his stomach contents hours ago, he would now.  
  
Eddie is hyperventilating when all else falls quiet and the monster sinks back into him. He glances around. He has to get out of here. Somebody will have heard those gunshots and called the authorities, and Eddie is in so far over his head that there’s nothing in his mind but pure panic. He throws open his window and uses the fire escape.  
  
He’s a few blocks away, sticking to alleys and gasping for breath when he hears the first police sirens. He’s prepared to just keep running, but tendrils shoot out of his entire back, latch onto the building beside him, and snap him up against the wall. He groans painfully as his feet kick uselessly in the air.  
  
 **You betrayed me.**  
  
“Can we talk about this later?” He wheezes. “There are dead bodies in my apartment and I’m going to be suspect number one.”  
  
 **They will not find us.**  
  
Eddie pulls against the tendrils holding him against the wall, whimpering pathetically.  
  
 **But you need to learn your lesson.**  
  
It drops him from the wall suddenly, and he lands hard and crumples to the ground with a grunt. Next it envelops him again, and he watches as it moves a short way down the alley and breaks easily into the first door it finds. It enters, and closes the door behind it.  
  
Eddie glances quickly around through its eyes. It’s dark but he can see reasonably well. It looks like the back store room of whatever shop this is. Most things are in boxes on the industrial shelves lining the walls. The creature takes a few steps, then sinks back into Eddie’s skin, and everything goes dark. There’s next to no light in here, and apparently without the alien’s eyes, Eddie can’t make out anything in the darkness. He shivers, still shaking with nerves, and reaches out his hands to try to feel his way out of here.  
  
It doesn’t stay under his skin long, and he’s hardly taken the first step before a tentacle emerges and sweeps his feet out from under him. He goes down hard, just barely managing to catch himself with his outstretched arms, but the shock of pain that blasts through them makes him groan and collapse onto the floor.  
  
More tendrils are emerging from his skin, pushing his shirt up, his trousers down, and Eddie’s heart starts beating faster, and he tries to get up and crawl away, even though he knows he can’t escape the creature inhabiting his own body.  
  
It binds his knees together, grabs his wrists, and pulls his arms out from under him, sending him crashing to the ground hard for the third time in as many minutes. His arms twist behind his back and the black substance binds them together, and Eddie rolls painfully onto his side, already breathing heavily.  
  
“You- you said you wouldn’t do anything to me for the rest of the day!” He’s desperate to get this thing to stop any way he can.  
  
 **That was before you went against me. If you won’t behave yourself, then I will do whatever I please.**  
  
Numerous tendrils are sliding their way across his skin now, and he shudders. He can’t even pinpoint how many there are, just knows that he feels them on every limb, and touching all his most sensitive areas.  
  
Every time he tries to move, a new tendril emerges and binds him, stopping that attempt to escape what’s coming.  
  
He can’t see any of what’s happening in the darkness of the room, and he’s not sure if that’s a blessing or a curse. He doesn’t particularly like the sight of alien tentacles emerging from his own body to have their way with him, but without being able to see, each touch to his skin comes as a surprise, and it’s making his entire body tense with stress and fear. His heart pounds in his chest, and all he can hear is blood in his ears and his own gasping breaths.  
  
Some of the touches to his body change, two of the tendrils spreading across his skin and branching out, the sensations transitioning from the feeling of being touched by the tip or side of a tentacle, to something that feels more like large hands.  
  
Various tendrils push between him and the floor, manipulating him as one of the hands grips his hip. He is pushed up off his side and onto his knees, but his face remains pressed into the floor. Another hand-like thing grips the other side of his hips as more tendrils push his knees farther under him, putting his ass in the air. His trousers are down around his knees, his shirt is pushed up under his arms just enough to expose most of his back and his chest, and Eddie is helpless to move.  
  
The fingers on his hips curl inward slightly, and he can feel what he’d guess are sharp claws on the end of each one, pressing into his skin, threatening to puncture, but not doing so yet.  
  
Next he feels that tongue, distinguishable from the tentacles in the dark by the wetness of it, by the smear of slime he can feel in its wake as it slithers back and forth across his lower back before making its way down. Eddie jerks as it slides between his cheeks and against his hole, but the hands grip harder, the claws threatening to puncture his skin again, and he falls still with a whine.  
  
The tongue presses into his puckered hole, and Eddie barely manages to suppress what would probably have been a pretty gross sound. The intrusion is slender, not like anything else the creature has forced into him so far, and it slides in easily, not really even hurting. He shudders when he realizes how good it actually feels, and his stomach twists in discomfort and disgust.  
  
It slides in deeper, wiggles against his prostate and makes him jerk his body weakly against his restraints again, but as it presses in more, it gradually gets thicker, until it starts to hurt. Eddie groans. He can feel the creature’s saliva gathering around his hole, starting to drip down toward his balls.  
  
When he feels the sides of those sharp teeth come to rest against his ass, he takes in a shuddery breath and tries to hold himself perfectly still. The tongue squirms suddenly, and he jerks with a moan. It’s only a little painful, mostly just uncomfortable in his hole, but the length of it inside him knows just where his prostate is, and it’s obvious the creature is after pleasure again even though this is supposed to be punishment for Eddie’s actions. The tongue presses into him until it has him moaning, his cock just starting to twitch unwillingly to life, and then it pulls out.  
  
His hole feels loose and wet and now a little cold, and he holds his breath as he waits for its next action. He wants to run, but can’t even move. The tongue slides up his back, and he soon feels the more familiar sensation of a thick tendril against his hole. The tongue reaches his bound hands and plays between his fingers, coating them in slime and making Eddie groan in disgust, and then the tendril shoves forward hard, and the hands gripping his hips pull back at the same time, using the force of however the two are connected to ram the tentacle deep into his ass. Eddie screams.  
  
Firmly lodged inside him from that one single thrust, the tentacle suddenly grows, stretching him wide and making him try to rear up with another scream. One hand moves from his hip and grips the back of his head, pressing his face back into the ground. The tentacle pulses and its girth increases again. Eddie squeezes his eyes shut, and the pain kills what little arousal he had, his cock going slack against his thighs again.  
  
When the creature is apparently satisfied with the stretch of his hole, it starts pounding him hard, making him wail in pain and misery. Eddie starts to slide forward with the force of it, his body straightening out bit by bit, but the the one hand pulls at his hip again, and the other drags his head back, repositioning his body and forcing his ass back up into the air.  
  
Eddie doesn’t know how long it fucks him like that before it changes tactics again, but his body is in agony, and he has stopped even trying to get up. The hand moves from the back of his head, slides down his body and grips his hip again as the tendril in his ass stops its frantic fucking and its shape changes, narrowing where it is lodged in him, reducing the pain to a barely-bearable ache, but growing in size just inside him. The pressure grows, the press of it against his prostate sending a strange, constant, rolling pleasure through him. And then it starts pulsing, each pulse of it sending a stronger shock of pleasure across his nerves, and Eddie moans.  
  
He jerks in surprise as he feels the tongue caress the curve of his ear, and then the alien’s voice is rumbling low and quiet above him.  
  
 **“We’re going to cum, Eddie. We’re going to cum until you’re screaming, and when you do, I want it to be my name on your lips.”**  
  
Distantly, Eddie thinks that this thing must have been rooting around in the dirtier corners of his brain recently, because he honestly didn’t expect something nearly so intentionally kinky to come out of its mouth.  
  
“Your… your n-name?” He stutters with each pulse inside him, his body twitching at the sensation, blood running slowly into his cock again.  
  
 **"I told you. I am Venom."**  
  
Eddie starts to squeak out its name, but the tendril around Eddie’s right wrist suddenly dissolves away, and Eddie’s arm slides from behind him and hits the floor weakly. His left remains solidly bound behind his back. Eddie makes a wordless, questioning noise.  
  
 **"And you’re going to help, Eddie. Touch yourself."**  
  
Yeah, this thing has definitely been doing research in his head. His thoughts scatter as the thing in his ass pulses hard, and he fails to stifle a guttural moan.  
  
It’s bad enough just having to experience this thing fucking him, worse that it makes him feel good while it does, and he can barely even process its order to aid its goal. Jerking himself off while it rapes him in the ass is a little more than he thinks he can handle right now.  
  
 **"Don’t disobey me."**  
  
The creature’s voice is dangerous enough to make him shudder, and at the same time, the narrow part of the tendril passing through his hole thickens to its previous girth all at once, and Eddie screams in agony. His hand shakes as he moves it toward his groin, and as he takes hold of himself, the tendril narrows again, and he takes a gasping breath.  
  
The pain was quick enough that it didn’t kill his erection this time, and now the creature is back to pulsing into his prostate, its tongue running up and down his jawline, and Eddie hesitantly starts stroking himself. It’s incredibly awkward at first, but he eventually falls in time with the pulses, closes his eyes even though he can’t see anyway, and tries to pretend that he’s somewhere else, jacking off with a weird toy in his ass instead of this monster.  
  
 **"Yesss, that’s it."**  
  
Eddie groans as the alien instantly shatters what he was trying to imagine, its voice pulling him right back to where he actually is. It pulses into him hard, and as he strokes his cock, he starts to moan quietly.  
  
It works him up, with his unwilling help, until he’s biting his tongue to try to keep himself quiet. He doubts anybody is here, and if there were, surely they would have heard his screams already, but the last thing he wants to do is attract someone’s attention right now. He moans loudly anyway, his body starting to rock with the sensations, his fist tightening around himself. He wishes he weren’t as involved in this as it’s forcing him to be, but now that he is, and now that he feels that warm, tight feeling pooling in his stomach, he puts more effort into it, if only to get it over with sooner, twisting his wrist as he strokes in that way that feels so good.  
  
 **“Remember my name,”** it practically purrs in his ear, its hands tightening on his hips, and if it hadn’t reminded him, he definitely would have forgotten that it wanted that, and probably would have earned himself another fucking until he did it right.  
  
At the same time, its voice is a little bit of a turn-off, not that any of this is particularly arousing, and it takes him another minute to get to the edge. He knows it feels it too, at this point probably knows exactly how close he is, and exactly as Eddie gives himself a good squeeze to get himself off and try to finish up this horror show, the tendril in his ass expands enough to make him scream as he starts cumming hard.  
  
“Aahhh! V-Venom!” He just barely manages to grit the name out as most of his senses abandon him and pleasure rockets through his body, his hips bucking weakly. The creature practically shudders inside him, and one last strangled sound of pleasure from Eddie transitions into another scream, this time in pain as the fingers gripping his hips curl in pleasure and rake backward, tearing through his skin. Eddie’s whole body is shaking in a sickening mix of pleasure and pain as the hands leave him, and they both shudder through the last of his orgasm. Slowly, the tendrils sink back into his body, and it lets him collapse on his side.  
  
Eddie tries to hold back sobs, his shaking hand moving from his spent cock to the cuts on his hip. Four long slices on each side, not deep, thankfully, judging by the feel of them, but blood trickles down his skin and the stinging pain is oddly overwhelming in the wake of all the sensation he just experienced. He whimpers and tries to push himself up, tries to get the side of his hip up off the ground, to get his fresh cuts out of the dirt and whatever else might be on this floor. The last thing he needs right now is to have go to the hospital with an infection and explain these cuts to someone.  
  
He rests on his knees, his ass aching, his cock softening, and he hides his face, humiliated and hurt. This thing may as well just own him now. He doesn’t see any escape.


	6. Chapter 6

Eddie finally manages to get himself up, fix his clothing, and feel his way out of the stock room and back into the alley, but he stumbles with every step. His ass aches, the pain practically feeling like it’s seeping into all his other muscles as well, and the touch of his clothing against the cuts on his hips makes him bite his lip to hold back pained moans as he moves. He stumbles out into the alley and looks around blearily. He should continue getting away from here. He hardly cares anymore if the police find him and arrest him for suspected murder, but it’s not like he’s going to just walk back there and offer himself up, so he turns and continues away from his apartment.  
  
The creature is quiet in his head, probably sated and happy after what it did to him, and what it made him do. He grimaces and keeps stumbling away.  
  
It’s slow progress, and he avoids people as much as he can, but he’s kind of wandering aimlessly at this point. He doesn’t know where to go from here.  
  
He’s gradually made it several blocks away when a black SUV screeches to a stop on the street in front of him, its window rolls down, and before he or the alien is able to react, Eddie hears a muffled gunshot and something hits him square in the chest. He goes down hard on his back and looks down at it almost numbly. Some kind of dart-like thing is about as far as he gets in assessing it before he realizes his body is seizing and the pain manages to swim upstream to his brain. Black starts to emerge out of his body, but it’s oddly sluggish and shaking. He’s not sure with all the pain already in his body if the dart is electrocuting him or injecting him with something, or maybe both, and he tries to reach for it but quickly loses consciousness.

  
*****

  
He wakes up tied to a chair. His chest is strapped to the back and his wrists are tied to the arm rests, and he should probably be more concerned about this, but at this point he can barely dredge up the energy. There are bright lights in his face, and he squints against them. His head hurts, and he lets it loll back down toward his chest.  
  
He doesn’t know how long he’s there alone. He searches through his head for the alien, and it’s still there, but it’s not doing anything. He’s not sure if it’s unconscious, or just feels as fucking awful as he does. He hopes the latter. Serves it right.  
  
Finally he hears the automatic sound of a door sliding open, and he squints as someone walks into the room.  
  
Carlton Drake.  
  
Eddie groans.  
  
He steps up to Eddie, too close, inspects him quietly, looking down his nose at him, then a little smirk curls the corner of his mouth. “Finally got you.”  
  
“You wanted me?” Eddie slurs weakly, and the sarcasm doesn’t come across as clearly as he had hoped. “I’m flattered.”  
  
“I could care less about you, Brock. No, it’s your symbiote I’ve been looking for.”  
  
The alien within him doesn’t move, doesn’t talk, doesn’t react.  
  
“Might want to come back later, I think it’s out.” Eddie’s looking down at his chest, still half expecting to see tendrils emerge. “But I mean, if you want it, it’s all yours. Happy to hand it over, hoo boy, let me tell you. It’s-“ his eyes snap upward as a large hand suddenly wraps around his neck.  
  
**“Stop playing, Venom.”** In Drake’s place stands a huge silvery monster.  
  
Eddie wheezes and struggles weakly in his restraints, his eyes widening at the sight in front of him. Is this what these aliens look like from the outside? God, it’s horrifyingly ugly. Eddie squeaks out a weak sound, and he’s pretty sure his whole life flashes before his eyes, and really, it’s pretty much just one big disappointment in the end.  
  
The creature within him comes to life suddenly, enveloping him and bursting easily out of the restraints holding him to the chair. It stands up, knocks the hand away from its throat, and faces down the other alien.  
  
**“Venom,”** the ugly one says. **“The plan starts now. Get in the rocket.”**  
  
Eddie really wishes he didn’t have to be a part of this. He doesn’t want to get launched into space on top of everything else that’s happened. But maybe at least the creature would stop fucking him then? Unless the others of their kind are like Venom. Then it might just turn into one giant space orgy. Eddie swallows thickly and tries to chase the thoughts away. He doesn’t think he can handle thinking about that right now.  
  
**“No,”** Eddie’s parasite responds, and that definitely stops Eddie’s train of thought. **“We will not let you destroy this world.”**  
  
_What?_  
  
**“What?!”**  
  
**“I’ve come to like it here. I won’t let you destroy that.”**  
  
**“Venom, don’t be stupid.”**  
  
**“No. I have power here. I won’t anymore if you bring the others.”**  
  
**“Then die.”** The other alien transforms its arm into a large blade and slashes it quickly at Venom’s chest, slicing it open, and Venom leaps back. Eddie yelps, but it didn’t seem to cut into him, thankfully.  
  
The two creatures fight in the lab, and Eddie watches helplessly. He can only take a small bit of comfort in knowing that Drake is probably having a fit inside that thing over what they’re doing to his lab. It quickly becomes clear, though, that Drake’s alien has some skills up its sleeve that Eddie’s definitely does not, and really, this isn’t looking good. Eddie wonders if killing his parasite will involve killing him as well.  
  
After the lab is practically destroyed by their fight, the other alien grabs hold of Venom’s upper jaw and somehow manages to start tearing it off of Eddie. Eddie screams as it’s ripped from him, the sensation shooting pain through every cell of his body. The creature’s voice sounds in his head, but it’s strained, probably from its own pain from being ripped away.  
  
**The only way to beat him is with soun-**  
  
The voice goes silent as the creature is ripped the rest of the way off his body. Eddie is thrown carelessly to the ground, and he looks up over his shoulder to see Drake’s alien holding up an amorphous blob of black, growling at it threateningly.  
  
Eddie quickly scrambles away behind an overturned lab table. The other creature simply turns and walks away, and Eddie peeks over the edge and watches it stuff the black blob into a large glass and metal cylinder, and snap the container shut.  
  
It tucks the container under its arm, then turns and scans the room, and Eddie ducks back behind the table and holds his breath, hoping it won’t come back to finish him off. After a moment, he hears its footsteps retreat, and he lets out his breath.  
  
It’s only after the creature is gone that Eddie’s mind starts working again. He’s free of it. He’s finally free of that rapist monster. He stands up slowly, painfully, and looks around at the destroyed lab. He just has to get out of here, never look back, and he won’t ever have to deal with that thing again.  
  
That is, until they come back with their invasion force and start taking people over and probably eating the world’s population. Eddie’s stomach flips. He has basically no power to stop Drake’s monster, probably wouldn’t really even have the ability to stop just Drake even if the man didn’t have an alien backing him up. But he’s really not going to be able to go back to his sad little life knowing that the Earth would soon be doomed.  
  
But the creature, Venom, actually said it didn’t want to destroy Earth after all. Eddie imagines it was just having too much fun playing with him, but still, it’s sort of a promising turn of events. He guesses. Maybe.  
  
He suddenly remembers its words as it was ripped off of him. It knows how to stop that monster. There’s probably no chance of beating it without that knowledge, and there’s no way to get that knowledge without finding Venom and getting it out of that canister. And letting it out almost certainly means it will bond with him again. His knees feel a little weak at the very idea, and he grips the table in front of him for balance. He can’t go back to that.  
  
But he can’t just stand by and let Drake take off in that rocket, either.  
  
It occurs to him that if he learns from Venom how to beat the other one, then he’d know how to beat Venom too, and maybe he could use that. It’s just enough of an advantage that maybe, just maybe, trying this crazy stupid plan will be worth it.  
  
He can’t stay here all night and debate with himself. He takes a breath, steels himself, and hurries in the direction the monster went. He might die trying this anyway, and then, he supposes, it wouldn’t be his problem anymore.  
  
He doesn’t know where the monster has gone, but he can take a guess, and luckily this place is about 50% windows once he gets out of the lab area, so it’s not hard for him to locate the launch pad and head toward it.  
  
It takes a little wandering back and forth through unfamiliar hallways, but eventually he sees a sign labeling the area before him as the _Control Room_ and that’s as good a bet as any. They have to launch the rocket somehow, and as far as he knows, which admittedly isn’t that far in this subject but you work with what you can, you don’t typically launch a rocket from the rocket itself.  
  
He heads toward a large doorway and all he can see of the room is the wall of windows facing toward the launch pad, but he can hear Drake’s voice inside.  
  
“I will be piloting the spacecraft.”  
  
“Sir, even fully automated, you can’t pilot it alone.”  
  
“I’m not alone.”  
  
Eddie steps closer, but stops suddenly as something leaning in the corner outside the doorway catches his eye.  
  
It’s the canister.  
  
He barely stops himself from bursting out laughing. That moron’s so cocky he just _left_ it here. He probably didn’t want to carry it into the room; that would just cause even more suspicion than he’s probably already raising right now, but he could have at least tried to hide it. He probably didn’t plan on leaving it alone for long. Eddie steps toward it with a shiver. That black mass is inside, writhing and squirming, and as he crouches in front of it, it flings itself off the bottom of the container and onto the glass side, masses of weird tendrils gripping the glass as it moves around. Eddie jumps back. He doesn’t want to do this.  
  
“Scrub diagnostics,” he hears Drake’s voice from inside. “Did you hear me? Start the launch sequence!”  
  
Eddie swallows hard. He has to do this. He doesn’t see another choice. It’s the only chance to save the planet. He forces himself not to think about what it’s done to him, how much it has hurt him. There’s no other way.  
  
He looks the canister over quickly, but there’s no obvious way to open it, no button or switch or even a keypad. He’ll have to break it. He wraps his arms around the canister and hauls it up. It’s heavy and awkward, but he gets to his feet painfully and hurries off back down the hallway. He has to find somewhere safe, somewhere where he won’t be found until he can get this thing open.  
  
He breaks into what looks like some kind of meeting room, and sets the container down. He watches the black mass writhe around for a moment, then crouches by it, grimacing at the rub of his trousers on his hip wounds.  
  
“Don’t think this means I like you, or what you did to me,” he hisses at it, not even sure if it can hear or understand him. “I only need you out of there so you can save the goddamn planet.” He stands up slowly and looks around the room. There’s a fire extinguisher on the wall in the corner, and that was a pretty successful tool last time, even if it was what had gotten him into this whole mess. But what the hell, bad decisions just seem to be his thing lately.  
  
He grabs it quickly and goes back to the canister on the floor. “Don’t make me regret this,” he says, raising the fire extinguisher. His heart jags in his chest, terrified of what he’s about to let loose. “Ah, fuck. I’m going to regret this.” He smashes the fire extinguisher down. There’s no other choice, he reminds himself.  
  
It takes a few hits before the glass side of the canister shatters, and the goo surges out between the jagged shards of glass, and Eddie stumbles backward, his heart hammering in his chest. He thinks about running after all, but it’s quickly climbing its way up his leg, then sticks itself to his chest and seeps into his body. Eddie shudders as the feeling of the creature inside him returns. But he has to focus. He did this incredibly stupid thing for a reason, and if they don’t manage to stop Drake and his alien, then Eddie’s _really_ going to regret his choices.  
  
“You know how to beat it,” Eddie says quickly. “How?”  
  
**We have to hurry,** is all it says, and that really wasn’t the answer he was hoping for, but it’s quickly enveloping him, and Eddie groans. It moves up to the window in a couple quick strides and peers out toward the rocket. There’s no movement, no sign of the other one yet.  
  
“Please tell me you at least have a plan.”  
  
**“Can’t beat him by fighting him. But fire will kill him. We sabotage the rocket.”**  
  
_Fire_ , Eddie thinks. He thought the alien was saying something else when it got ripped from him, but he’ll take any information it’ll give him.  
  
There’s screaming out in the hallway, terrified people, and Venom turns quickly.  
  
**“Venom!”** The other creature roars from somewhere down the hallway, and Venom throws itself through the window and gallops at an exhilarating pace toward the rocket. Eddie hopes they can make it before they’re spotted. By his guess, this plan depends on Drake and his creature not knowing that they’ve so much as touched the rocket.  
  
“The fuel tanks should be near the bottom,” Eddie says inside the creature. “If you puncture the tank, it’ll probably explode when it takes off.”  
  
**"Got it."**  
  
It doesn’t stop until it is around the far side of the rocket, where it rips off a large section of thick metal pipe, then leaps toward the rocket and starts climbing the side.  
  
The creature stops its climb and stabs the pipe into the side of the rocket. With a metallic crunch and screech it breaks through the skin and stabs in deep before the alien pulls the pipe back out. Liquid pours out of the hole and Eddie can’t so much smell it as taste it in the air, and he’s certainly not familiar with the taste of rocket fuel, but it’s sharp enough that it seems fairly likely.  
  
“That should be enough,” Eddie tells the creature, though he’s pretty sure they’re on the same wavelength on this. “Don’t want to make it obvious.” Hopefully Drake won’t notice the damage, though if he does, at least he won’t be able to take off until the rocket is fixed, and that should give them enough time to figure out some other way to stop him.  
  
Venom leaps off the side of the rocket, and flings itself toward the water. Eddie has to close his eyes to keep himself from screaming in fear as they fall a much larger distance than he’s comfortable with. It dives into the water with a splash and swims a good distance away before surfacing and turning around to face the rocket.  
  
They wait.  
  
Eventually the other creature appears, crawling across the side of the rocket, obviously searching. The rocket isn’t well-lit on the back, and luckily it’s crawled up higher on the rocket than the puncture Venom made, and it doesn’t seem to notice the damage. Finally it climbs higher and disappears around the other side.  
  
It’s not long after that that the rocket starts to take off, flames billowing out the bottom. Eddie watches a line of fire travel quickly up the side of the rocket, and then with a deafening series of booms, it explodes.  
  
Fire fills the air, pieces of the rocket fly everywhere, and Eddie watches with a certain satisfaction at having stopped an invasion and given that bastard Drake what he deserved at the same time.  
  
He doesn’t think, at least in that moment, about the price he paid for that victory.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since posting this chapter, one reader asked if I could provide any insight on Venom's thoughts and feelings as Eddie was effectively rescuing him. I was feeling indulgent, so I answered in mini-fic form, and figure, why leave that hidden at the bottom of the comments that most people probably don't read? So if you're interested in a snippet from Venom's POV, it's in this comment here. :)  
> https://archiveofourown.org/comments/197033122


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, I got myself into it again, cause I’m dumb. I didn’t sign up to write a police procedural, so forgive me for any inaccuracies. I’m just here to write porn and Eddie’s suffering.

Venom gets them across the bay and back to the city, then sinks back into Eddie’s body and leaves him wet and cold yet again. Eddie glances at his phone, a little surprised to find it still alive, and he’s glad he got the water resistant model back when he still had money, because wouldn’t a ruined phone just be the icing on the cake after today. It’s after midnight, which means the cable cars are no longer running.  
  
Well, it doesn’t matter, he decides. It’s not like he can go home anyway. His apartment’s new decorating theme is probably blood and caution tape right now. He limps his way to an unoccupied alley, finds a dumpster to crouch behind, and settles in for the night, pulling his knees up to his chest and wrapping his arms around them. He grimaces at the pain, but he’s exhausted and doesn’t know how else to sit.  
  
So. He saved the world. Or helped, at least. But now he’s got the parasite again, and the only thing he knows about hurting it is fire, and that’s pretty much guaranteed to hurt him too. Good method for killing both of them, not so good for just getting it out of him. He sighs.   
  
At least it’s not all bad, he tries to tell himself. At least he’s not stuck with a creature that wants to rape him _and_ destroy the whole planet. Sure, that’s not actually too comforting, and it might have wanted to save the planet for probably bad reasons, but maybe if it changed its mind about this, it might eventually change its mind about other things. Like fucking him.  
  
He clings to that idea desperately. Even if he’s stuck with it for the rest of his life, it’s not just punishing him constantly. It has a reasonable side, it can be argued with, to some degree. There’s hope, if he stays on its good side. Maybe he can make it through this. But that doesn’t mean it’ll stop raping him right now. He’s still stuck with this, and he’s still pretty powerless against it.   
  
Eddie curls up tighter around himself. What is he going to do now? He can’t go home, pretty much can’t even be seen in public. He supposes Drake did end up destroying his life a little more, if indirectly. Eddie admits that he’s the one who made a stupid move and got himself infected, but Drake was the one who brought these creatures to Earth and started killing people to study them. None of this would be happening if Drake had just left the goddamn things in space where he found them. Eddie had gone from successful reporter happily engaged to a woman he loved, to dumped, jobless, and in a shitty apartment, and now he’s homeless, probably wanted, and sharing his body with a rapist. In more ways than one. Eddie groans and buries his face against his knees. Maybe saving the world wasn’t worth it after all.  
  
Exhausted and too miserable to deal with this shit, he soon falls asleep.  
  
When he wakes up, the sun has risen and his whole body hurts. He straightens his back against the wall with a groan. He feels disgusting. He hasn’t showered since before he ripped his shower curtain down, is still cold and in pain, and he’s really not sure he’s cut out for the homeless lifestyle. Hell, a jail bed would be better than this, but he doesn’t know if the creature would let him get arrested.  
  
“Venom?” He asks meekly. He’s sure it’s still in him, but he hasn’t heard or seen it since last night.  
  
 **What, Eddie?**  
  
“I can’t- I can’t deal with this. I can’t live like this.”  
  
 **So go home. I will eat anybody who bothers us.**  
  
“No, it’s not… That’s not how it works. You can’t just enter a crime scene and make it even more of a crime scene.” He buries his face in his hands. Explaining things to this creature is a nightmare. “Look, I don’t want to be homeless and the only way I can ever go back home again is if I’m not wanted by the police. Let me turn myself in, they won’t hurt me as long as you hide, I’ll convince them I didn’t kill those men, and hopefully I’ll be cleared.”  
  
 **I don’t like the ‘hopefully’ part of that plan.**  
  
“Well, but I mean. I _didn’t_ actually kill them, so I wouldn’t be lying, so it’ll probably work.”  
  
 **And if it doesn’t I will get us out of there.**  
  
Eddie sighs. “Yeah, okay, fine.”  
  
Compromise. It’s not a perfect plan, but the creature seems willing enough to go along with it, to a point at least, and that’s another promising step forward. He pulls out his phone, searches up the nearest police station, then pushes himself to his feet with a groan and starts limping in the right direction.   
  
The creature is quiet, but he feels agitation in his head, and he’s pretty sure it’s not his. He’s mostly just apprehensive about this whole thing. He tries to think about how he’ll explain all this to the police, but his thoughts are all over the place, and he can’t seem to concentrate.  
  
When he steps through the door to the police station, it feels like everybody looks up and stares at him. He swallows uncomfortably, but he can’t blame them. He’s sure he looks as awful as he feels. He steps up to the desk and stalls while the woman behind it stares at him expectantly. His heart is beating fast. He’s afraid, not so much of ending up in jail for this, but of what the creature will do if he does.  
  
“I’m, uh… I’m Eddie Brock,” he says weakly. “There was an… incident at my apartment last night.”  
  
The woman behind the desk and all the officers in the vicinity are instantly alert. No doubt his name has been made known after his apartment was found filled with bodies. It’s only seconds before he finds himself pressed face-up against a wall while an officer handcuffs his wrists behind his back. Another helpfully tells him he’s being arrested for suspected murder, and as he recites Eddie’s rights, the creature in his head growls, and he feels it prickle under his skin.  
  
“It’s okay,” he murmurs quietly to it. “It’ll be fine.”  
  
They take him in back and lock him in a holding cell. Eddie sits slowly down on the provided bench, grimacing as he does. He leans back and takes slow breaths, just trying to stay calm, trying to collect his thoughts.  
  
 **What is this? I thought you would talk to them.**  
  
He just barely stops himself from cringing. “Not now,” he hisses quietly. He can’t be caught talking to this thing right now.  
  
When an officer walks past his cell, he sits up from where he was leaning against the wall. “I… I didn’t kill them. Please, just let me explain.” He mostly says it for the creature’s benefit. He doesn’t want it thinking he’s not going to get a chance to get himself out of this situation. He certainly doesn’t want it deciding to get him out of it itself.  
  
“Save it,” the officer says gruffly. “The investigator is on his way.”  
  
Eddie sits back and waits quietly.  
  
About an hour later, he finds himself sitting in an almost laughably stereotypical interrogation room. One table, three chairs, and a one-way mirror set into the wall in front of him. At least the floor is a pleasant shade of mint, he notices oddly as he stares down at it.  
  
After a while, an officer and another man walk in, and Eddie looks up at them and tries not to look as nervous as he is. His heart has been beating too fast for too long. They sit down, and the interview starts.  
  
His story is crazy. He knows it’s crazy, but he tells the truth about every single bit of it except two points: he doesn’t tell them that the creature is in him, and he flat out lies and says he doesn’t know where it went after all that happened. He doesn’t particularly want to end up on a dissection table as they try to find the alien inside of him, and while the alien really does need to be stopped, he knows that that’s not going to happen, and the best he can do is minimize its damage.  
  
A couple grueling hours of questioning later they take him back to the holding cell. The creature makes a displeased sound in his head.  
  
 **It didn’t work. I will get us out of here.**  
  
“No no no!” he whispers as quietly but urgently as he can. “They just have to investigate now, check out my story.”  
  
 **How long will that take?**  
  
“I… I don’t know. But they can only hold me for four days, tops, then they have to charge me or let me go.”  
  
 **Four days?!**  
  
Eddie cringes. “Up to! Up to four days. They might let me go sooner.” He still keeps his voice at a low whisper.  
  
 **I don’t want to stay here that long.**  
  
“It’s this or we go back to living on the street,” he says desperately, feeling it move beneath his skin. “Just give them some time. Please.”  
  
The creature grumbles, but settles down, and Eddie takes a breath and lets it out slowly, trying to calm himself. He feels like Venom puts him completely on edge every time it so much as speaks to him.  
  
  
*****  
  
  
Multiple times over the next couple days, he has to talk the creature down from breaking them out, and at least talking to it is easier now that they’ve moved him to a more private holding cell made for longer stays, but he still whispers, afraid that someone might hear.  
  
The investigator comes back a couple times and they pull him out for more questioning, and the news is both good and bad. On one hand, it seems the coroner had declared that the victims’ heads did indeed appear to be bitten off by something clearly not human, and that the injuries that killed most of the men were varied and inflicted in ways not consistent with any weapon they can fathom. Also Eddie’s description of the creature matches descriptions from two other unexplained incidents on report. So at least they don’t think he’s lying about a monster anymore. Unfortunately, Eddie can be linked to both of those incidents, based on Anne’s report to the police and the location of Eddie’s now impounded bike, and they want to know why.  
  
“It was following me,” is the best Eddie can come up with, and they don’t seem particularly happy with the lack of questions that actually answers, but it seems the police are in over their heads as much as Eddie is.  
  
They take him back to his cell near the end of day three, and the alien grumbles, and Eddie expects he’s going to have to talk it down again.  
  
 **Eddie, we’re hungry. They are not feeding us enough.**  
  
“I know,” Eddie says. He feels it too. “Just have to hold out. It won’t be much longer.”  
  
 **I’m going to eat your organs next.**  
  
Eddie swallows thickly. “Please don’t do that.”  
  
 **No choice. I require the energy.**  
  
Eddie stifles a whimper. He can only hope that it can hold off on eating his organs for another day. The police have pretty much decided that he didn’t do the killing, but are still unsure of his involvement. They’re certainly not going to find the monster out there, so he expects he’s not going to be released until the full 96 hours are up and they have no choice because they won’t have sufficient evidence to charge him.  
  
He’s been able to get to sleep here lately only by virtue of the fact that the creature has been leaving him alone. It knows it can’t be seen here for this plan to work, and Eddie keeps that in his mind as a wall of safety against it. That doesn’t stop him from having nightmares, though, or waking repeatedly from night terrors, his fear making him sure that something horrible is happening, until his mind calms enough to realize that it’s not.   
  
That night he wakes with a jolt, his eyes coming to a sharp focus on the far wall of his cell as he feels something snake down his lower back and into his trousers. He waits for the feeling to fade, but his heart keeps hammering, and the thing behind him pushes past his waistband and wriggles into his briefs. This isn’t a night terror. This is real.  
  
“What are you doing?!” He lets his voice get a little louder than he should have, and starts to push himself up from the bed, looking down at his body, but he sees no tendrils outside of his clothing. The one working its way into his trousers starts to snake down the crack of his ass.  
  
 **I don’t like it here, Eddie. If we have to stay, then I want to have some fun.**  
  
“Oh god,” Eddie whimpers. “Not here. Please, not here. They can’t know you’re here.” He has the sense this time to keep his voice low. If anybody finds out this monster is still inside him, they will definitely not be letting him go, and he doesn’t doubt that that will result in a murderous rampage.  
  
 **They _won’t_ know as long as you stay quiet.**  
  
The tendril works itself between his cheeks and presses against his hole and Eddie feels a shudder work its way through his body.  
  
“Please don’t make me cum,” he begs. He’s never been very good at keeping himself quiet through an orgasm. He also doesn’t want to have to explain a wet stain on the front of his trousers.  
  
 **But that’s the part that feels the best.**  
  
Eddie lets out a quiet whine as it pushes slowly into him, breaching his ring of muscle and making him shudder. But he lies back down and puts his hand to his mouth to try to keep himself quiet. Making a fuss will not stop the creature, and will likely just attract attention to him.  
  
The intrusion is slender, more slender than it has ever been before, and it’s not what he’d call pleasant, but at least it’s not making him scream in pain like it has the last four times.  
  
At the same time, tendrils emerge from this thighs and snake around his cock, stroking and pulsing, and Eddie bites down on the flesh at the base of his thumb to stay quiet. In his ass, the tendril wriggles, making him jerk his hips forward before forcing himself to be still. It goes for his prostate and starts thrusting against it slowly, and he bites his hand harder, squeezing his eyes shut.  
  
This is much less painful than the previous times it fucked him, and while Eddie wouldn’t say he gets hard fast, he does get hard more quickly than he’s comfortable with considering the circumstances. The creature knows him well now, knows how his body works, knows exactly what kind of touches make his nerves sing, even when Eddie wants nothing to do with this.  
  
He had been feeling relatively good over the last few days. Not being raped was always nice, but mostly the fact that the creature was listening to him made him feel like maybe rejoining with it to save the world wasn’t a huge mistake after all. But now he’s reminded of just how powerless he is against it, how much it can control him. It’s not even using force now. It knows it has his obedience because making a single sound could ruin everything Eddie’s been trying to do. His heart pounds in his chest, his fear of being discovered like this making him clench his teeth into his hand yet harder.  
  
It picks up its pace a little, sliding in and out of his ass, caressing his cock with undulations unlike anything a human could produce, and the forced pleasure combined with the unusual lack of pain pushes him toward the edge quickly. He takes rapid, deliberate, forced breaths through his nose to try to keep himself quiet and hopes the creature will just get him off without playing around and then leave him alone.  
  
He should have known better. He jerks as he feels a narrow tendril slide against the slit of his cock and push down into him. His hand slips away from his mouth as he slaps it down against the bed and grips a fistful of the blanket desperately.  
  
“No, no, no,” he begs quietly. If it delays his orgasm like it did before, he’s definitely not going to be able to keep himself quiet when he finally cums. The creature moves his arm and slaps his hand back over his mouth.  
  
He shudders as the tendril pushes deeper into him, the one in his ass still pumping with a steady rhythm, the multitude of them around his cock still stroking and squeezing.  
  
They push him on and on, until he’s past the point where he would have cum, and he can’t hold back his whimpers and moans any longer. His hand slips weakly away from his mouth again.  
  
The alien’s black substance emerges from his face, plasters itself over his mouth, and he manages to take in a gasp before it extends and covers his nostrils too. He slaps his hand back over his face to hide the blackness, and curls in on himself as the tendril in his ass presses harder with each thrust. The cover over his mouth moves, pressing between his lips, and a thick tendril extends and grows, filling his mouth and quickly pushing its way down his throat. He tilts his head back to open his throat up, the intrusion thick and painful as it forces its way deeper, bulging out his throat.  
  
He can’t move air in or out of his lungs, can’t make a single sound, and that’s when the tendril in his ass thickens slightly and slams into his prostate at the same moment as the one in his cock retreats, and Eddie jerks and writhes silently as he cums hard and fast, his vision blanking out as it all overtakes him once again. His fingers curl hard into the blackness over his mouth, and the tendrils around his cock squeeze him and send another shudder through his body, another squirt of cum soaking into his briefs.  
  
Finally Eddie collapses weakly on the bed, and the last of the shudders fade from his body. The air in his lungs is going stale quickly, but he’s too overstimulated to really even register it. The tendrils retreat from his ass and cock, sinking back into his body, and as Eddie finally lies completely still, the one in his throat pulls out slowly, and the cover over his mouth and nose melts away. Eddie grips at this throat and takes in heaving gasps, only now fully realizing how much he needed air.  
  
He has just enough sense to open his trousers with shaking hands and push them down a short way before his cum soaks into them too much. It feels a little unpleasant, not being able to change out of his wet briefs right now, but he’s not going to strip here. He turns over to face the wall behind him and tries to steady his panting breaths.  
  
He’s a little surprised to find his body doesn’t really hurt in the aftermath. At least no more than it had before Venom started. His heart still pounds in his chest, though, and he tries to hear over his own breathing, terrified that someone will have heard something and will come investigate. The monster’s hiding now, though. He tries to assure himself that it’ll be okay, that nobody will know, even with his trousers open and his briefs wet. He can just say it was a wet dream.  
  
He still feels humiliated and ashamed, and it’s clear that Venom still pretty much owns him, but he tries to take comfort in the fact that it wasn’t as cruel as it has been. At least it has enough reason in its head to not go completely overboard right now and ruin everything he’s been working toward for the last three days. Though a twinge goes through Eddie’s chest at the realization that it still used that to control him, to make him pliable to its desires.  
  
He is aware that it could go back to its old ways easily, that as soon as he gets out of here, it could walk him into an alley and fuck his ass until he’s screaming, but presently, at least, the creature feels a tiny bit less threatening, a little more humane. He folds his arm under his head and his body reluctantly relaxes as he starts to gradually fall asleep again. Maybe, with time, things will change. Maybe things will all be okay.


	8. Chapter 8

96 hours after he walked into the police station, Eddie steps back out the front door with a plastic bag of the items they had confiscated from him upon his arrest, and the address of the place where he can reclaim his impounded bike. He pokes at his phone’s wake button repeatedly, but its battery is dead.  
  
He could tell that the police weren’t quite done with him, that there were still questions that remained unanswered, but their time was up, they didn’t have solid enough grounds to charge him, and they were legally required to release him, so there was no other option. At least his apparent willingness to cooperate with the whole process seemed to put them somewhat at ease about his involvement, but there was still a monster out there that they couldn’t locate, and Eddie’s relation to it was still a mystery to them.  
  
No sooner has he crossed the threshold, the creature speaks forcefully in his head.  
  
 **FOOD, Eddie.**  
  
Eddie tries and mostly fails to not cringe. He hurries away from the police station, away from anybody who might be able to hear him.  
  
“Can we eat something other than people?” He tries weakly.  
  
 **Not if you want me to restore your organs to the way they were.**  
  
Eddie swears under his breath. Great, now it’s putting this on him. Also, fuck, did it start eating his organs already? Maybe that would explain the vague sick feeling he’s had since yesterday.  
  
Eddie is quiet for a moment as he passes a group of people, before he dares speak again. “Can you at least just keep me alive without eating people?” He’d gladly take feeling sick over having to deal with being involved in murder again.  
  
 **Not well.**  
  
Eddie swallows. He imagines wasting away to some slow, miserable demise, only to unleash this thing on some other poor bastard to learn how to deal with it after he dies.  
  
“Can- can we sort of… limit who we eat?”  
  
 **What do you mean?**  
  
Eddie ducks into an empty alleyway to get away from the people on the street. This is not a discussion he wants to be having anywhere where people will hear him.  
  
“Look, killing people is what got us into this mess. And unless you want to get into it again and force me to become a wandering homeless fugitive-“ the creature starts to speak and he raises his voice to speak over it, not wanting to hear its suggestion that it just eat anybody who tries to bother them, because that’s really not a viable solution. “You can’t just go eating anybody you like.”  
  
The creature grunts in annoyance, and Eddie starts worrying that he’s pushing his luck here.  
  
 **Then who do you suggest we eat?**  
  
Eddie stalls a little. He supposes he could attempt to teach this thing to become some sort of vigilante monster and only eat people who harm others. It would at least make him feel a little better about the whole murder thing. But that sounds like a complicated process, and doesn’t actually guarantee that Venom won’t just end up attracting the police’s attention to him again. He should probably start more simply.  
  
“I just… I mean, you have to be more subtle about it.” He doesn’t know if Venom would understand subtlety even with the definition right in front of its face, but he doesn’t have a lot to work with here. “You can’t let people see you do it and you can’t leave any traces that can be linked back to me.”  
  
It makes another annoyed sound.  
  
Eddie imagines that this is all probably a pointless endeavor, that after four days of the police seeing no signs of the monster while Eddie was in their custody, they’re going to immediately suspect him again if murders or disappearances start the very day he was released, but what else is he going to do?  
  
 **I do not like all these rules.**  
  
“Well, you’re the one who decided you wanted to stay here, man. You could always find a better host. One that’s better at… you know. Murdering people.”  
  
 **No. You are too good a match.**  
  
Eddie winces. He figured he was stuck with this thing, but it was worth a try.  
  
He takes a breath. “How long can you go without eating people?”  
  
 **We need food now.**  
  
“Yeah, okay, but after that.”  
  
 **If you eat enough on your own… Maybe a few weeks.**  
  
Well… that was better than he had expected. He might even be able to stretch it out a bit, let the thing start eating his organs before they resort to eating a person.  
  
“Okay,” he says, taking another deep breath. “Can you please just… hold out on eating someone for a little while? We need to get far away from here first.”  
  
 **Fine.**  
  
It doesn’t sound happy at all, but it agreed. Eddie hates that he has to negotiate with it, hates that it is so in control of his life that he’s actually having to work with it on how they kill people, but he’d be lying if he said he’s not relieved that it is willing to negotiate at all. Maybe he can manage to work with this, with time. It still sucks, but hey, baby steps. He’ll take what he can get.  
  
He goes for his bike first. The route takes him near his end of town, and as he passes a few blocks from Mrs. Chen’s little bodega, he takes a detour. He doesn’t particularly want to think about eating people right now, but in the mean time, he’s incredibly hungry, and hopes that even if it’s not enough for the alien, grabbing a snack for himself might calm his stomach.  
  
“Hey, Mrs. Chen,” he says as he steps through the door.  
  
“How’s it going, Eddie?” She doesn’t bother to comment this time on how awful he must still look.  
  
“Ah, you know, nothing’s changed but the weather.” That is so far from the truth he could laugh at himself, but it’s a little nice to pretend. Also it’s not like he’s going to tell her about the nightmare his life has become.  
  
He heads back to grab a couple things he can eat on the go easily enough, but takes pause at a vaguely familiar voice.  
  
“The payment is due, Chen.”  
  
“Please, I can’t keep doing this.”  
  
Eddie peeks back around the edge of the shelf he had just stepped behind. That thug is back, and pulls his gun on Mrs. Chen as she fumbles for the cash register.  
  
“Venom,” Eddie whispers quietly. “Think I just found a meal for you.” Eddie wouldn’t feel terribly bad about ending this particular person, and the guy’s probably already pretty well under the law’s radar. The chances of anybody really caring if he went missing are pretty slim.  
  
The alien makes an interested sound in his head.  
  
“Think you can do it without anybody seeing?”  
  
 **Yes. Follow him.**  
  
Eddie keeps hiding behind the shelf until Mrs. Chen has passed over the money and the thug pockets it and tromps back out the door. Eddie quickly follows. Mrs. Chen stares at him glumly as he passes by her without buying anything, and he gives her a hurried shrug. “Sorry, forgot I had to be somewhere,” he says quickly and somewhat nervously.  
  
He follows the guy down the street at a safe distance. “How do you want to do this?” He tries not to think that he’s very quickly gone from unwillingly being involved in murder to actually _helping_ with a murder, but he reminds himself that the best he can do is minimize this thing’s damage.  
  
 **Ambush.**  
  
Eddie gives a nod and picks up his pace to pass the guy, being very careful to act like he doesn’t even notice him as he passes mere feet from him. He dares a glance over his shoulder after he’s a little ways away, making sure the guy’s still walking this way, then ducks into the first alley he comes to. He waits.  
  
The moment the guy passes in front of him, a thick length of black shoots out of Eddie’s chest, grabs the guy’s head, and yanks him into the alley. Venom quickly takes over, enveloping Eddie as it pulls its prey closer, and Eddie braces himself for the horror he’s about to witness.  
  
It’s quick, at least, and Venom consumes the whole body, leaving little other than a few splatters of blood and a gun on the ground before it sinks back into Eddie and leaves him standing alone in the alley. Eddie shakes with nerves. Yeah, that was kind of horrible, but at least it’s over with and hopefully he won’t have to deal with that again for a while. “Happy?”  
  
 **Yes.**  
  
Eddie nods and looks down. He quickly pulls his sleeve over his hand, scoops up the gun, glances around, then chucks it in a nearby dumpster. He heads back toward the street, trying to still the shaking in his body. At the same time, though, he feels the alien shift within him, and it must be putting his organs back together, because he very quickly feels better.  
  
He gets his bike back next, though the hefty fine to do so is pretty painful to hand over, and then he heads home, a little afraid of the state of his apartment, but actually looking forward to his own bed. Also a shower and a change of clothes.  
  
He steps through his door cautiously. It looks like the police had at least cleaned up the blood pretty well, but everything else is still a mess from the fight, furniture broken or upended, with glass and who knows what else littering the floor in places. Eddie sighs. He should clean up, but whatever, it can wait. He makes a b-line for the bathroom.  
  
He should have bought a new shower curtain while he was out, but in the mean time he puts the old one back up with the help of a bit of duct tape, discards his filthy clothing on the floor, and quickly gets in the shower, trying hard not to think about the alien or the fact that it hasn’t had its daily rape session yet.  
  
The hot water cascading down on him starts to relax muscles he didn’t even know were tense. He takes a moment to examine his hip wounds, since this is the first time he has really had the privacy and time to do so. They don’t look infected, and in fact are starting to heal, new scar tissue visible around some of the edges, though they’re still a bit tender. Old, dried blood is smeared on his skin between and around them, and he moves himself back under the stream of water with a sigh.  
  
He’s not surprised when he feels a tendril work its way up the inside of his thigh, but he still freezes, soapy hand stalled where it was scrubbing at his chest, and his muscles tense.  
  
 **This feels nice, Eddie. Warm.**  
  
Great, so now showers are a turn-on for it. Eddie forces back a shudder and his heart rate picks up, thumping in his chest as his fear grows.  
  
The tendril plays behind his balls, as if not sure which direction it wants to go, and for a moment, he dares to hope that it won’t penetrate him this time. But then there are more tendrils, going opposite directions, and he can’t help but clench as one makes its way to his ass.  
  
He doesn’t beg this time. It has never stopped it before, and he doesn’t see why it would stop it now. He plants his hand against the shower wall in front of him and braces himself as the one at his ass thickens, spreading his cheeks but not pressing in yet. He lets his head droop down to his chest in shame, and closes his eyes so he doesn’t have to see the tendrils that wrap greedily around his cock.  
  
It toys with him for a minute, stroking his cock and teasing at his hole, and any relaxing effect the warm water had on him is lost as his muscles tense more and more.  
  
When it finally pushes in, it’s painfully thick, and he slams his other hand against the wall beside him and leans heavily against both arms as he cries out at the pain. His knees feel weak, and he expects he’s going to end up on them before this is over. When he manages to control himself after the initial surge of pain, he tries to speak.  
  
“D-do you have to make it hurt?” He knows it’s capable of fucking him and getting its pleasure out of him without hurting him, so why has it gone back to using such a thick tentacle? If it can feel his pleasure, it must be able to feel his pain too.  
  
 **I don’t have to, but I like to.**  
  
“Why?” He groans. The tentacle thrusts its way deeper into his ass, and he almost loses his footing.  
  
 **It reminds you that you’re mine. And it makes me feel good.**  
  
“Believe me,” he says, pausing a moment to choke back another pained sound as the tentacle thrusts again. “I know I’m yours.” He knows there’s nothing he can do against this thing, no way for him to keep himself safe from its whims.  
  
 **“But I like to make sure you won’t forget.”**  
  
This time the creature has manifested its head behind him and rumbles its words directly into his ear. Eddie moans painfully as it thrusts again. It’s uncomfortably deep inside him now, and his hole is stretched painfully. The tentacle seems to be getting thicker the deeper it goes.  
  
It finally stops thrusting in, but instead starts sliding back and forth, using his hole freely but not going for his prostate yet. It works his cock, though, touching in all the right places and making Eddie bite his lip to hold back a moan.  
  
More of the creature manifests out of his back, and soon something is pressed up against his shoulder blades, and large arms wrap around him, hands grabbing at his pecs, toying with his nipples. He looks hesitantly over his shoulder and sees the alien’s humanoid-form head and shoulders behind him. It’s smile is wicked as the tentacle thrusts in and out of him, and he quickly turns his head away and closes his eyes again.  
  
One hand explores down his ribs, claws tracing lightly over his skin and making him shudder in fear. The memory of those claws ripping through his hips is still all too clear. The hand skims over the cuts on his hip, making him tense, and then moves down and wraps around Eddie’s cock as the tendrils that were playing with it slink away. Eddie looks down fearfully. The large hand completely envelops his length, the claws turned inward and just barely brushing the soft skin of his cock.  
  
The hand tightens slightly, then gives a single pump along his length, and Eddie chokes back a sound, more fear than anything. His body has gone completely still. He knows what those claws are capable of, and doesn’t want them anywhere near his cock.  
  
The alien pauses, its hand unmoving for a moment. Then the tentacle in his ass thrusts hard, going deeper again, thickening as it does, and Eddie makes a strangled sound and his legs give out on him. He drops to his knees in the bottom of the tub and he tries to brace himself against the walls again. It’s too thick. It hurts. His body quivers.  
  
The alien behind him laughs aloud, then starts stroking his cock again. The tentacle in his ass doesn’t move, just stays inside him, impossibly big and painful. The hand around him doesn’t feel as good on his cock as the tendrils usually do. It isn’t as nuanced and exact in its touches, and Eddie’s a little grateful. This, what he’s experiencing now, feels about as disturbing as it should. It’s not muddled with unwanted pleasure, not mixed with the shame of feeling good when he should be nothing but horrified.  
  
The other hand slides up his chest and wraps around his neck, and his breath stutters, but the hand doesn’t squeeze, at least not yet. It just settles around his neck, nearly encircling it completely, and Eddie tilts his head back and stretches his neck nervously. Behind him, the creature’s torso is pressing into his back, its head is right beside his, and it’s not stopping him from moving, but he feels as trapped as he has in the past when it has had him completely restrained with tendrils.  
  
The hand slides up and down his cock for another minute, then slows, and stops.  
  
 **“Hm, it’s not as good, is it?”**  
  
The hand gives his cock a squeeze, just a bit too hard for comfort and Eddie takes in a gasp of air. Then it lets go, and slides across his hip, tracing the lines it had cut into him. At the same time, the tentacle in his ass starts to retreat, pulling out and letting his hole gradually shrink to a less painful dilation. When it removes itself completely, Eddie takes a breath of relief, but he can’t imagine he’s going to get off this easily.  
  
The hand continues around, cups one lobe of his ass, squeezes it briefly, then the fingers explore farther, dipping between his cheeks.  
  
“Oh god,” Eddie moans out as he feels the sharp claws probe at his entrance. This is a recipe for disaster. And probably internal bleeding.  
  
The claws scrape against his skin, but his hole gives way, and two thick fingers slide into him, stretching him instantly to the point of pain. Eddie bites his lip to try to stay quiet. His body is starting to shake in fear.  
  
The fingers go in deep, and Eddie can feel the claws scraping inside him. At the same time, the tendril originating from his thigh slides between his legs and wraps itself in a coil around his cock. The edges of it merge into each other, and it forms a thick cover over his cock and balls, encasing him completely. It starts to massage and move and press around him, and Eddie can’t help the moan that escapes him.  
  
The monster starts thrusting its fingers in and out of him, and Eddie’s next moan transforms into a whimper. “Please… Don’t cut me…”  
  
The fingers curl inside him in response, the claws scraping dangerously, and Eddie’s hands slip from the wall and he scrabbles to catch himself on the edge of the tub. His whole body is shaking, and he tries to stop it, afraid the creature is going to slip and hurt him.  
  
 **“You’re so easy to scare,”** the creature laughs. **“And I love seeing your pain. Love how you scream.”**  
  
Eddie chokes back another fearful sound as they scrape inside him again, but then the creature shifts its hand, the fingers twisting inside him and reaching for his prostate.  
  
 **“Do you like this better?”**  
  
He can still feel the claws threatening to puncture, but the feeling is nearly drowned out by the pleasure firing through him with each press into the gland. The sense of danger combined with the pleasure sends a strange thrill through his stomach, and he shudders. Any chance of thinking through that particular reaction is shattered as the mass around his cock squeezes him in a not-unpleasant way at the same time as another press into his prostate, and he chokes back a moan.  
  
 **“Yes, we like that.”**  
  
Eddie opens his mouth to argue, but can’t make himself form a coherent word. A gross sound comes out of him instead, and he gives up on talking, his face burning with shame.   
  
He feels himself grow hard after another minute of stimulation, and the mass around him squeezes him again.  
  
 **“I think I can do even better,”**   the alien says with a smug tone.  
  
Eddie isn’t sure what it means at first, but he’s afraid. It doesn’t change how it’s touching him, but he feels something shift in his guts, pushing a brief wave of nausea through him. It moves downward, and it’s hard to pinpoint within him, but it settles down near his groin, and all of Eddie’s muscles are tense. What is it doing?  
  
The hand around his neck tightens down slightly, and something tickles around what must be his prostate, judging by the jolts of pleasure it unexpectedly causes, just a moment before such a shock of pleasure shoots through him that he lets out a strangled scream and cums hard right then and there. It completely blindsides him. His hips buck forward, his fingers scrabble at the edge of the tub, and the pleasure just keeps coming and coming, waves of it practically drowning him. His whole body feels like it’s lighting up, and just when it gets so intense that he thinks all his nerves are going to fry, the creature bites down on his shoulder and lets its teeth sink in deep. Eddie screams again and his vision starts to tunnel to black.  
  
It squeezes his prostate and milks his cock for all it’s worth, forcing him to keep experiencing the overwhelming pleasure even through the pain. Again the mix of pleasure and pain sends Eddie reeling, his lungs taking a gasp of air before forcing it out as another scream.  
  
When he’s left leaning heavily against the wall in front of him, panting in exertion and pain, the pleasure finally fading from his body, the teeth retreat from his flesh at the same time as the creature removes its fingers from his ass and the mass around his cock melts into him.   
  
**Such a good boy,** Venom praises, before the rest of it starts to sink into his body as well. The hand around his neck tightens into a collar briefly before it, too, sinks away.  
  
Panting, Eddie falls back into a sitting position. He sucks in a breath of air between his teeth in pain at the sting of the water hitting the wounds on his shoulder, but doesn’t have it in him to move out from under the stream. His head droops, and he stares numbly between his knees and watches cum and blood wash down the drain.  
  
That was not an improvement to the creature’s behavior. That was practically another punishment, but he’s not sure what he did to deserve it. Is this what he gets for trying to impose his own rules and ideals on the creature? Is this the price for getting to negotiate in other areas? Maybe it was just backlash from the creature being bored in jail for four days. Maybe it’s nothing, just the creature doing what it wants to get pleasure out of him. He doesn’t know.  
  
He feels lost. He doesn’t know where to go from here, doesn’t know if there’s any chance of taking steps forward like he had hoped. It feels pointless now. Venom can still do whatever it wants to him.  
  
His mind drifts back to his orgasm, to how suddenly it had hit him, and he shudders. He knows it forced it on him just like every other time, but it was so instantaneous that he didn’t really have the time while it was happening to rationalize it, to reason that it was not his fault, that it was the way the creature was touching him that made him feel that way. He went from uncomfortable and violated to blind pleasure so fast that it almost feels like somehow, he must have actually enjoyed it that time.   
  
He buries his face in his hands and takes a deep breath.  
  
No. He didn’t enjoy it. The creature’s just found a new way to fuck with him. It’s not his fault.  
  
Slowly, shakily, he makes himself stand up. He hurriedly finishes his shower and turns the water off. The shower curtain half rips down again as he tries to push it back, and he sighs, grabs his towel, and wraps it around his waist.  
  
He wipes the steam off the mirror, tries to get a look at himself, but it’s blurred and unclear. Probably for the best. He probably doesn’t want to see how awful he must look. He inspects his shoulder next, prodding gently at one of the hundred or so small wounds, hissing in a small breath of air at the pain.  
  
“I don’t suppose you’d heal this,” he says flatly as slow trickles of blood spread across his wet skin. He tries to lift his arm and lets it fall again with a grunt of pain.  
  
 **I like when you’re marked.**  
  
Eddie gives a resigned nod. That’s about what he had expected. Venom owns him. Why shouldn’t he be marked?


	9. Chapter 9

Eddie tries to just keep himself busy for the rest of the day. After his shoulder stops bleeding, he gets into some clean clothes, and instantly feels a little better, a little more like a regular person again. He spends most of the rest of the day puttering around the apartment, gradually cleaning up and throwing out broken bits of furniture. He’s out a coffee table, and his kitchen island table is gong to need some repairs. He tapes up a piece of cardboard to fill the broken window.  
  
He goes grocery shopping, and spends more in one trip than he has in months. If this thing needs lots of food to keep from eating people, then he’ll have to be prepared to keep it fed.  
  
That afternoon he finally pulls his phone off the charger and looks through four days of missed notifications. Eight more missed calls from Anne. Not a word from Dora Skirth. He pauses at one missed call. That’s his old boss’s number. He’s got a few voicemails from Anne, but he goes straight to that one, and listens a little skeptically.   
  
Of course it’s one of those pointless messages that says nothing other than to return the call.   
  
He stares blankly at his phone for a minute after the message finishes, then punches the button to return the call.  
  
“Eddie,” his old boss answers a little more cheerfully than Eddie thinks he has any right to.  
  
“Hey. You, uh, called.”  
  
“I did. The network wants you back, Eddie.”  
  
Eddie’s silent, and after a moment, his ex-boss continues on.  
  
“Don’t get me wrong. I still don’t trust you, but nobody’s above the network, and the network heads want the Eddie Brock Report on the air again. So I get to be the one to offer you your job back.”  
  
“Uh,” says Eddie dumbly. This was not really what he expected. Honestly he didn’t know what he expected. So, what, Drake dies and suddenly everything’s okay again? That figures.  
  
“But,” his old boss says, pausing a moment to make the stipulation clear, “This offer comes on the condition that you behave yourself on the show.”  
  
“Mm-hm,” Eddie says, disinterested in that but following his own train of thought now. “This was all about Carlton Drake from the beginning, wasn’t it?”  
  
There’s a sigh on the other end of the phone. “Eddie, you know how powerful he was. And yet you had to go be a dumbass in an interview with him. Yes, fine, I’ll admit it, it was partly about him. He wanted you down and out, and he could have shut the network down if he wanted to. We couldn’t take that risk.”  
  
“But now everything’s A-OK and you want me to come back.”  
  
“Look, don’t be a pain about this. I’m just looking for a yes or a no here.”  
  
“I’ll think about it.” Beggars can’t be choosers, but he has just enough pride left that he doesn’t particularly want to go back there after they kicked him out on the street. But if this opportunity is open again, there might be a world of possibilities open to him now. He wouldn’t mind going into journalism instead. Keeping a low profile seems like a good idea right now too, considering what has happened to his life. He’ll poke around, see what else he can dig up, and go back to the network if he doesn’t find anything else.  
  
“But,” Eddie says, “I do have something the network might want.”  
  
“And what’s that?”  
  
“Pictures of the inside of Drake’s lab.”  
  
There’s silence on the other end of the phone, and Eddie can guess he’s debating if he should even ask how Eddie got such pictures.  
  
Eddie speaks again before he answers. “Big story in this, I’m telling you. You wanted evidence that I was right, and now I’ve got the evidence. You want them, I’ll sell you a license to use them.” In the past, Eddie might have handed the photos over freely. He definitely would have in order to tear Drake down. But now Drake is dead, his empire crumbling, and sure, it would be worthwhile to just give them to the network in order to absolve himself of his previous misdeeds, but Eddie hasn’t had a job in six months, and expects he’s going to be spending a lot on food now. And, he knows in the news frenzy of something this big, the network is going to be hungry for more story to put out.  
  
From the other end of the phone, there’s a thoughtful “hm,” then: “can you come by my office tomorrow? We can work out the details then.”  
  
Eddie agrees, and that’s that. He takes a moment after he hangs up to enjoy the feeling of the first good thing to happen to him in six months. He had fallen so far down over the last several days that he didn’t really think anything good would ever happen again. But now he’s got a job offer, the chance to finally prove that he wasn’t wrong about Drake, and a good immediate source of some much-needed income, especially if he sells rights to his photos to a few other networks and papers as well.  
  
Bolstered, he checks Anne’s voicemails next. They’re all varying shades of worry and “where are you” and telling him things he already knows, like that his apartment was a crime scene.  
  
He sighs after the last one and stares at his phone. He really wants to talk to her. It tears at him that she’s concerned about him. Even if she’s happy with Dan, even if she doesn’t want to get back together with Eddie, just the idea that she’s worried about him gives him a little hope.   
  
But his last interaction with her had ended in disaster, thanks to his parasite, and he’s terrified of repeating that. On one hand, he wants to very carefully avoid doing anything that’ll prompt the monster to fuck him again. On the other hand… Anne.  
  
His heart rate starts to pick up at the thought of the monster. The stress of just thinking about it gives him a pain somewhere in his lower chest. Venom didn’t seem to like that he was looking for help last time, and he’s not going to try to look for help anymore, but he’s still worried that any contact with Anne now will result in the same thing.   
  
He looks back down at his phone. He doesn’t want to bring Anne into this again, but he doesn’t want to worry her either.  
  
“Will… Will you punish me again if I talk to Anne?”  
  
 **Not if you behave yourself.**  
  
“I’m not looking for help anymore,” he admits weakly. “I just… I need to talk to her.”  
  
 **Then call her.**  
  
Eddie swallows, and then nods. “Okay.” He takes a breath and looks back down at his phone. “Okay.”  
  
He’s going to have to lie to her. Nobody can find out he still has the parasite. He’s sure the police are still suspicious of him, and he’s going to have to step very carefully. He realizes he’s damn lucky that Anne must have neglected to report to them that Eddie said the alien was inside of him. If they knew that, his whole story and implications that it was its own entity fall apart, and he’s sure he’s going to be suspect number one again.  
  
He takes another slow breath to calm himself, then taps Anne’s name on his screen and puts the phone to his ear.  
  
She answers within two rings. “Eddie! Where are you? I’ve been trying to get ahold of you for days!”  
  
“Hi, Annie,” he replies weakly.   
  
“Why haven’t you been answering your phone? What the hell’s been happening? What was that thing? Where have you been?”  
  
“Ooh. Uh…” Eddie’s not particularly sure where to start. “That’s… That’s all a very, very long story.”  
  
“Are you okay?”  
  
“I…” No, he’s really not. Not by any stretch of the imagination. “It’s fine now. It’s over. That thing’s gone now.”  
  
There’s a brief silence on the other end of the phone, and Eddie can hear his heartbeat in his ears.  
  
“You don’t sound okay.”  
  
“It’s… Do… Do you want to get coffee?” He’s immediately a little surprised at himself for saying that. He knows he needs to lie to her, and that’s going to be even harder face-to-face, and she’s going to be able to see just how awful he probably looks… But he just wants so badly to see a friendly face. And Anne being that friendly face has been something he’s been aching for for six months.  
  
“Sure, Eddie. How about I meet you at that place on 3rd?”  
  
“Yeah, okay. I’ll see you there.”  
  
He hangs up and tries to reassure himself that he hasn’t made a horrible, horrible mistake. He tries to take comfort in the fact that the alien knows as well as he does that it can’t show itself in public without fucking up the delicate balance of their life. It doesn’t seem to want to end up in jail or on the street any more than he does. He stands up, trying to ignore the shaking in his legs, and grabs his motorcycle helmet on his way out the door.

  
*****

  
It’s only as he steps through the door to the little cafe and sees that Anne already has a table that he stops to think about exactly what happened last time he saw her, and he freezes in his tracks. The last time she saw him, he was pinned to her wall with tentacles coming out of his body in preparation to fuck him. She may or may not have seen him get stripped by them, but she certainly found his clothes afterward. He doesn’t want to think about if she saw the tentacles enter him.   
  
This was a mistake. He shouldn’t have come here to meet her. A shudder runs down his spine, his face growing hot with embarrassment, and he considers turning around and going back home and never answering another call from Anne again, but then she’s looking up at him, and he realizes it’s too late. He forces himself to walk over to the table and sit down. He does his best to hide his wince as he does. He’s not happy that he’s getting used to being in pain all the time, but at least it helps in this moment.  
  
He can’t meet her eyes. He stares down at the table, glancing up at her a couple times nervously, but not for long. She’s staring at him, trying to read him, to see past his nervousness and embarrassment and learn more.  
  
“I knew you weren’t okay,” she says quietly.  
  
Eddie glances up at her and then back down at the table. “It’s… just been a rough several days.”  
  
“Eddie, what happened? Last time I saw you…” Her voice quiets. “There were… black things coming out of you. What was that?”  
  
Eddie squeezes his eyes shut for a moment, trying hard to imagine that that was all she saw. “I was… infected… by an alien.”  
  
“How does that even happen?”  
  
“I, uh… broke into the Life Foundation.”  
  
Anne stares in disbelief. “You what?”  
  
“Look, it’s a really long story. Drake found these things in space and brought them back, and then one got out and used me to escape.”  
  
“Where is it now?”  
  
Eddie shakes his head. “I don’t know.” He keeps his eyes on the table.  
  
Anne doesn’t say anything, and when he looks up at her, there’s something in her eyes, and Eddie’s afraid she’s going to call him out on his lie. She has no way to know the alien is still inside him, but she knows him well. They were going to get married. She can read him.  
  
It’s then that a waitress walks up, and Eddie snatches the drink menu in front of him and focuses on it, thankful for the distraction.   
  
“Okay,” says Anne after the waitress has taken their drink orders. “But I know a lot more has happened. Start from the beginning.”  
  
Eddie swallows. He’s not going to tell her that it’s been raping him. Even if she happened to see that in her apartment, he’d like to hang on to the idea that she hadn’t.   
  
“Look, please just- you can’t tell anybody. The police checked me out, and they let me go, but if they find out that it was inside of me, they’re not going to trust a word I said. I didn’t… I didn’t do anything wrong. It was the monster.”  
  
Anne looks a little taken aback. “I won’t tell anyone, Eddie. I promise.”  
  
Eddie calms a little. He probably shouldn’t tell her as much as he’s going to, but he trusts her. Yes, he had betrayed her, and she has every right to turn around and do the same to him, but he trusts that she won’t, at least as long as she believes there’s no harm in keeping the secret.  
  
His mind races as he speaks, trying to string together a coherent story while cutting out the parts he doesn’t want her to know. “I… I went to Drake’s lab to try to expose what he’d been doing. Someone came to me, said he was doing even worse things, and she got me in. The alien… It got inside me.” He swallows again. He can feel the alien shift inside him, knows it’s listening to every word he’s saying.   
  
“It used me to get out of the lab, and… I don’t know, maybe I had a bad reaction to it… but also I was scared, and I didn’t know where else to go, so I went to you.” His eyes sink back down to the table. “It, um… It didn’t like that I was looking for help.”  
  
Anne interrupts when he takes a moment to try to settle himself again. “Eddie, Dan’s been worried too,” she says. “Last time we saw you, it was… It just really scared us. Why don’t you come to the hospital, get checked up. You know, make sure it didn’t do anything to hurt you.”  
  
It has definitely hurt him, but Eddie shakes his head. He has no clue if it would be possible to find the alien through normal medical tests, but he can’t take the risk. “It’s- it’s fine. I’m fine.”  
  
“Eddie, please. You really don’t look good.” Anne reaches for him, and he flinches away reflexively at the sudden movement. It’s not that he’s afraid of her, he’s just… jumpy.  
  
He shakes his head again. “I just… I don’t want anybody poking at me right now. Maybe- maybe later.”  
  
Anne’s not satisfied, and he can tell, but she lets up, leans back a little, and lets him continue.  
  
“So, um, yeah, it… It fought off the police, and then it took me with it as it escaped.” He pauses again, collecting himself.   
  
Anne waits a minute, then prompts him further. “It was on the news the next day… It attacked some people.”  
  
Eddie nods, and swallows a third time. There’s a lump in his throat he can’t seem to get rid of. “I didn’t know it would hurt others. I went to the network building to try to give them my pictures of the lab… and it got… hungry…” He puts his head down in his hands and forces back a shudder at the memory. “Then when I finally got home, some of Drake’s men were waiting for me. They wanted the alien back. But it… It…” She knows what it did. She knows his apartment was blocked off and crawling with police. She had said so in one of her voicemails.   
  
His mind gets as far as him escaping through the alleys, and skips over Venom’s punishment entirely. He still bears the marks, but if he doesn’t think about it, maybe it didn’t happen.  
  
“Anyway, they, uh, they caught me anyway, took me back there.”  
  
“Is that how you got rid of it?”  
  
Eddie nods. And then he kind of shuts down, because how does he explain the rest of what happened that night? Can he claim he doesn’t know anything? That Drake just let him walk out of there after taking the alien out of him, and then went and conveniently blew himself up in a rocket?  
  
He doesn’t know how long he’s been staring down at the table before he realizes she’s still watching him expectantly. “I went to the police after that. Just got out this morning.”  
  
“But what happened in the lab? Isn’t that the night Drake’s rocket blew up?”  
  
Eddie flinches a little. “I didn’t do that, if that’s what you’re asking.” Technically, Venom did it.   
  
“I didn’t mean-“ She doesn’t finish the statement, just lets it fade gently away.  
  
Does he explain that Drake was infected too? He weighs his options, tries to find a story that doesn’t risk giving away too much, but isn’t straight up a lie. He’s lying enough as it is. “I guess… Guess he wanted to get more of the aliens, but something went wrong.” He shakes his head. “I just wanted to get out of there.”  
  
Anne moves slightly, as if to reach out again and maybe touch his arm, but stops herself. Eddie keeps his eyes down, and is suddenly aware that his shirt and jacket are damp with sweat. Jesus, he’s a mess.  
  
Their drinks come, and Eddie wraps both hands around his cup as if it might somehow provide him some support. The warmth is nice, at least. He takes a sip.  
  
 **What a nice story,** Venom coos in his head. **You wish it were true, don’t you?**  
  
Eddie jumps slightly and slams his cup back down on the table. Anne looks at him in surprise and worry.  
  
“It’s hot,” he tries to explain quickly, though that’s not at all the reason for his reaction. He can’t risk acting like he’s hearing a voice again, that’ll give him away.  
  
They sit in silence for a minute before Anne speaks again. “What was it like, having that alien inside of you?”  
  
Eddie forces back a shiver. “Not very fun.” He shakes his head. “It talked to me, in my head. And it could control my body. It was…” He’s acutely aware of his use of the word _was_ , makes very sure that he doesn’t slip and say _is_. “Was like a parasite, eating away at me.”  
  
 **Parasite?! Don’t call me that!**  
  
Eddie only barely manages to suppress his flinch this time, but he does manage it.   
  
“If it was a parasite,” she responds, and her lips keep moving but Eddie can’t really hear what she’s saying underneath Venom’s voice in his head.  
  
 **Make her shut up. I am not just some parasite and I won’t tolerate this insult.**  
  
Eddie presses his lips together. He can’t answer it, and he can’t just suddenly tell Annie to stop calling it exactly what he just called it.  
  
 **Ungrateful little bitch,** Venom growls. **This is symbiosis. A day will come when you’re going to _need_ me, and I’ll save your pathetic little ass.**  
  
Eddie feels it move within him, snaking down between his organs, and he goes stock still, his eyes wide. It moves down toward his groin, and Eddie jolts, gripping the table hard as it brushes against his prostate and sends a shock of pleasure though him that he was definitely not ready for.  
  
“I have to-“ he doesn’t even bother finishing that sentence as he stands up quickly, nearly knocking his chair backward, and he rushes toward the bathroom.  
  
“Eddie, what-“  
  
He’s almost there when the creature squeezes down on his prostate and he trips and falls onto his hands and knees with a strangled sound. Anne gets up and hurries toward him. It squeezes again and Eddie’s vision blanks out, and he just barely stops his hips from bucking forward.   
  
“What’s wrong? Eddie, are you okay?”  
  
“Fine, I’m fine! Just need-“ He scrambles up to his feet and hurries the short distance to the men’s room and bursts into it as it squeezes a third time and he feels the inevitable starting to roll through his body. He slams the door shut behind him as he plants his hand over his mouth to stifle the sounds he’s making as he orgasms suddenly, pleasure bursting through his body. His free hand clings to the hand dryer on the wall desperately for balance.  
  
He’s barely got his senses back when he stumbles into the stall and slams the door shut. His breaths are heavy, his body still tingling with the forced pleasure, his legs weak and shaking. He leans back against the side wall and tries to catch his breath.  
  
His eyes shoot open suddenly, and he fumbles at his trousers. He has to clean himself up before his cum soaks into his clothing too much.  
  
He hadn’t even gotten hard, and the orgasm felt different from any other orgasm he’s had, even the last one Venom forced on him in the shower. It was odd, and it was sudden, and he doesn’t know if he’s really prepared to think about the experience.  
  
He gets his trousers open and looks down, but there’s no wetness, no cum at all. A black tendril snakes out from between his legs instead.  
  
 **I caught it.**  
  
The tentacle that emerges has a round bump near the end, full, he imagines, of his cum. Eddie nearly breathes a sigh of relief. He’s pretty sure he’s thoroughly embarrassed himself already, but at least it saved him from adding that embarrassment too.  
  
“In- in the toilet,” he murmurs quietly, stepping toward the toilet and expecting the tentacle to spit the load out.  
  
 **No.**  
  
“Wh- what?” Eddie feels a chill run through his body at the creature’s tone.  
  
 **You’re going to swallow it.**  
  
Eddie squeaks out a weak whimper, and stumbles back against the wall again, leaning on it for support. The tentacle elongates and moves toward his mouth, and Eddie squeezes his eyes shut. It doesn’t even have to hurt him anymore to punish him, it knows exactly how to fuck with his mind, exactly how to make him feel weak and powerless.  
  
The tentacle comes to meet his lips, and he keeps them closed, whimpering quietly again as he shakes his head weakly.  
  
 **Do as I say,** it commands, and Eddie lets a shudder shake his body. It’ll punish him again if he doesn’t do it, and everything it does in public puts him at risk of being found out. He doesn’t want to find out what else it might come up with to punish him, and he takes in a deep breath through his nose before he opens his mouth a little and lets the tentacle slide inside.  
  
It deposits his cum on his tongue, and he feels nauseous at the taste of it. Next the creature forces his lips closed around the tip of the tentacle, and makes him suck it clean as it pulls slowly out of his mouth.  
  
Eddie forces back a retch as he collects the cum toward the back of his mouth in preparation to swallow it. He wants it out of his mouth, hates the flavor, but at the same time, can’t make himself do it for a moment. He wants to spit it out, but dares not. Another shudder shakes him as he finally forces himself to swallow, and the cum slides down his throat. The flavor is still on his tongue, though, and he feels gross and used.  
  
His life is thoroughly out of control, and any hope he had of clinging on to some scrap of control is basically shattered by now. Venom doesn’t have to emerge to punish him, barely has even to lift a figurative finger. His mind reels. He was not prepared for that. Even after last time, he was not prepared for the sudden, intense pleasure, and he feels like he must actually be some sort of slut to have fallen prey so very easily to it. He can’t be starting to like this treatment, but at the same time, it sort of feels like he is.  
  
He doesn’t actually hear the bathroom door open, but the footsteps that echo on the tile floor sound distinctly like high heels, and a second later the door to the stall he’s in bursts open. He had closed it, but apparently neglected to lock it.   
  
“Eddie, are you-“  
  
It’s Anne. Of course it’s Anne. Of course she would have the guts to just burst into the men’s room after him. Eddie stares in shock, and the tentacle is still stretched out in front of him, its tip hovering where it was playing at his lips a second ago. Anne’s eyes widen and she stumbles back, her hand moving to cover her mouth to prevent a scream.  
  
Eddie just stands there, dumbfounded, with his trousers open and his alien bodymate in clear view. Venom lays the tentacle along his body and sinks under his skin, and Eddie quickly fumbles at his trousers, closing them with shaking hands.  
  
“Annie, look, it’s-“  
  
“What the hell, Eddie?! What the hell is that? You told me-“  
  
“I know! I know!” He stumbles toward her, but his legs are weak, and he ends up on his knees before her. “I lied. I’m sorry, but I just… I couldn’t risk anybody finding out.”  
  
“You’ve still got that thing,” her voice is starting to change from panicked to angry, “and you think, what, you can just live like that? Eddie, that thing has killed people!” She at least has the sense to lower her voice for the last half of that sentence.  
  
“I know, but-“  
  
“This is crazy, Eddie. I still can’t ever trust you, can I? I can’t trust you to tell the truth, and I can’t trust… God, are you _protecting_ that thing?” She turns, yanks the door open, and storms out.  
  
“No! I-“ But she’s already storming away in disgust, and Eddie’s left on his knees on the floor, staring in shock, and dreading that his life is going to unravel. It’s all over now. People are going to find out, and if he thought his life was bad _before_ , he expects he’s got a whole new thing coming to him. Eddie hides his face in his hands and bites his lip hard to keep a sob from bursting out of him. It feels like it’s all slipping through his fingers, and he doesn’t know how to handle this.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No porn, just plot in this one, sorry. But boy do I have some serious porn planned for you guys in the next chapter, don’t worry! ;)

Eddie goes back home after that, his feet dragging despondently. He figures he’ll just wait for the police to come after him, and take it one step at a time from here.   
  
His chest aches, his shoulder throbs, his ass is sore, and there’s still twinges of pain on his hips if he moves wrong. He enters his apartment, closes the door, then kind of just stands there for a minute.  
  
 **Something is wrong with your body. Your heart rate is too fast, and your neurochemicals taste weird.**  
  
“Shit, I don’t know, maybe it’s all this fucking stress and trauma.”  
  
 **Trauma?**  
  
“You,” he says bluntly. “What you’re doing to me.”  
  
 **You are a strong host. You can handle it.**  
  
“No!” Eddie snaps. “I can’t. I can’t fucking handle this.” He bites his lip to force back a sob he can feel trying to push its way out. At the same time, though, he feels anger bubble up in him. This thing just has no fucking clue, does it? “Might want to find yourself a new host soon, because throwing myself off a bridge is starting to look pretty inviting.”  
  
 **I would never let us die from that.**  
  
The sob breaks through, and Eddie covers his face with his hands. He’s truly stuck with this, and there’s nothing he can do. He doesn’t actually know how serious he is about ending his own life. The thought has crossed his mind a few times, but actually going ahead with something like that is another matter. He doesn’t really want to die, he just wants this nightmare to be over.  
  
 **What is happening to your body?**  
  
Eddie takes a moment to try to pull himself back together. He wipes at his eyes and sniffs loudly. “That’s just what happens in humans,” he explains tiredly, feeling suddenly so burned out he doesn’t even have the energy to be angry anymore. “Too much stress makes us start to break down.”  
  
The creature growls in frustration, shifting here and there in his body.  
  
 **There is no damage for me to heal.**  
  
“Yeah, you’ve done it now, haven’t you?” If he didn’t feel like hell, he might have laughed spitefully. “Fucked up your host, and you can’t even fix it.”  
  
Venom growls again, and Eddie shuts his mouth, afraid he’s going to go too far and anger it again if he’s not careful.  
  
 **How do you fix it?**  
  
“At this point? Lots and lots of therapy, I expect. And let me tell you, we do not have the money for that shit.” This time he does actually laugh, though weakly. He has to laugh. It’s that or he’ll break down crying again.  
  
One more growl sounds through his head, and then Venom goes quiet and still, but Eddie can sense this is not acceptance. Venom still prickles with energy and frustration.  
  
Eddie attempts to just shrug it off. What would he do about it, anyway? He’s just along for the ride at this point, dealing with what Venom throws at him as best he can.  
  
He should continue cleaning up, but he resorts to pacing restlessly through his apartment, just sort of… waiting for something to happen. He feels agitated despite his exhaustion. If Anne went straight to the police, they should be here soon. He hopes they come prepared. He doesn’t really want to experience another massacre.   
  
The sun has set, but Eddie hasn’t bothered to look at a clock in hours, when there’s finally a knock at his door, and he nearly jumps out of his skin, but turns and heads toward it. He puts his hand on the doorknob, takes a breath, and tries to prepare himself. This was inevitable, really. He might as well face it.  
  
He opens the door, and freezes.  
  
Instead of the practical battalion of police in armor he had expected, it’s Anne standing in front of him, with Dan a little ways behind her. Anne looks apprehensive, but determined. Dan just looks a little bewildered.  
  
“Is… Is it safe?” She asks, looking like she might be ready to run at the slightest move from Eddie.  
  
Eddie stares at her. He had never expected to actually see her again, after the events of that afternoon. He looks down at his chest next, as if it might hold any answers from the creature inside him. “I don’t think it will hurt you.” It must know that hurting her will tear Eddie apart, and he barely dares to hold any hope anymore, but he feels just the tiniest spark trying to burn in his chest at the thought that the creature has realized the damage it’s causing to him is not damage it can fix.  
  
Eddie stumbles back as Anne pushes her way inside, pulling Dan with her, and she closes the door. Dan gives Eddie a weak smile and a “hey,” but he definitely seems a little out of his depth here.  
  
Eddie looks at Anne, who’s staring at him hard, her anger just under the surface, but contained. He looks at Dan, and can practically feel the man’s desire to ask if he’s okay, to do something to help even though he knows this is probably beyond him.  
  
When Annie doesn’t say anything, Eddie spreads his arms away from his sides slightly, palms up in a gesture of expectation. “So… I take it you didn’t go to the police?”  
  
“What does that thing want, Eddie?”  
  
Eddie stares dumbly. He honestly doesn’t really know anymore. It seems to just want to fuck him, but he’s not about to say that.  
  
He jerks as Venom emerges from his shoulder, forming its terrifying face on the end of some long tendrils, and both Anne and Dan shrink back.  
  
 **“I want Eddie,”** Venom replies for him, and Eddie just stares with a numb sort of horror. **“I want to live here, and I want to feel power.”**  
  
Anne doesn’t move any closer, but she manages to wipe the look of fear off her face pretty quickly, and Eddie has always admired that about her. She doesn’t let anything knock her off balance for long. “Are you… going to kill any more people?”  
  
 **“Yes,”** it answers unabashedly. **“But Eddie will be kind enough to direct me to prey that no one will miss.”**  
  
Eddie winces at the implication that he’ll so easily be complicit in this, though he knows it’s true. It’s not like he has much of a choice.  
  
Annie is glaring at it, and he can see the gears whirring in her head, her mind probably weighing the pros and cons of turning Eddie and his monster in. But he sees a chance. The fact that she didn’t go straight to the police, the fact that she’s still thinking it over, maybe he still has a chance to keep his head down and survive this without another bloodbath.  
  
“Please,” he rasps weakly to Anne, glancing at Venom almost as if asking permission to speak. “Don’t tell anybody.”  
  
Annie’s gaze snaps to him, but her expression doesn’t change, and it hurts him to think that she sees him the same way now as she sees this monster.  
  
“I’m not- I’m not defending Venom,” he says, and he mumbles out his next words as if Venom might not be able to hear him, though he knows Venom knows he feels this way. “I don’t want to be a part of this.” He spares another glance toward the monster, but it’s simply watching him with a vague smile on its face. “I just- I’m trying my best to minimize the damage. If you bring the police into this, people will die.”  
  
“It sounds like people are going to die anyway,” she replies.  
  
Eddie swallows. “Yes… but not nearly as many.”  
  
Annie glares back at the creature, and Eddie can tell she wants to launch deeper into the problem, but how can she talk about how they might beat this thing when it’s right here?  
  
“I can’t escape this,” Eddie continues, his voice nearly breaking. “I’m just trying to survive.”  
  
Anne’s body language loosens a little at that, and Venom makes a satisfied noise and sinks back into Eddie’s shoulder.  
  
“Eddie…” Her voice is considerably softer now. “What is it doing to you?”  
  
Eddie stands frozen for a moment, then shakes his head in a jerky motion. “You- you really don’t want to know.”  
  
“I’m serious, Eddie. Is it hurting you?”  
  
“Yes,” Eddie blurts out, at the same time pushing past her and Dan to move away from the door and toward his couch. His knees feel weak again. He sinks down onto the beaten sofa carefully, and stares at the floor as he hears them move cautiously to follow him. “But you can’t stop it.”  
  
Anne eases herself down on the sofa next to him. Dan sits uncomfortably in the chair across from the couch.  
  
“What was it doing at the cafe?” Anne asks the question carefully, but Eddie still cringes, his eyes screwing shut as his face starts to heat up with embarrassment.   
  
He can just imagine what she saw, him standing there with his trousers open and a fucking tentacle running from his crotch to his quivering mouth.   
  
“Punishing me,” he says simply, “because I called it a…” He can’t say the word. He’ll never say that word again. He clears his throat.   
  
“Eddie,” Dan says for the first time since they arrived. “You’re under an incredible amount of stress.”  
  
Eddie actually laughs at that. Tell him something he doesn’t know.  
  
“This kind of thing can have really serious effects on your health,” Dan points out. Not to mention, Eddie imagines, the fact that his… _symbiote_ has a habit of eating his organs on occasion.  
  
“Believe me, I know,” Eddie says, scratching at the side of his neck. “I’m all ears for any suggestions you might have on that.” He lets his sarcasm bleed through. He doesn’t really think there’s anything that can be done for him. Personal care is so far down on his list of things he thinks are worthwhile anymore. He figures at this point, the best he can do is just bear it until it breaks him.  
  
“Let’s get you to the hospital,” Dan says, his voice shifting into doctor mode, and Eddie’s not sure if he actually picked up on his sarcasm. “We might not be able to get rid of the cause, but we can do our best to treat the symptoms.”  
  
Eddie stares down at Dan’s feet. The prospect of help, futile though it may seem, is pretty tempting. He does feel part of him uncoil with relief though, just at the knowledge that he has some support now, that he has people he can talk to, people who are there for him. That he’s not completely alone anymore.  
  
He no longer has to be afraid of medical tests uncovering the alien inside him, or at least not as long as Dan is the only doctor who gets to see the results of those medical tests… But he still doesn’t particularly want to be poked and prodded and examined. There’s damage to his body that he really doesn’t want to have to explain. The bite wounds on his shoulder are one thing, he can probably pass that off as just a punishing bite from the creature, but what if Dan were to glimpse the cuts on his hips? Just their position and direction imply far more than Eddie’s ready to admit to.   
  
Anne senses him preparing to decline the offer, and she speaks up before Eddie does. “As a medical professional, I’m pretty sure Dan can tell you that you’re definitely not okay, so don’t try to tell us that you are.”  
  
Eddie shuts his mouth and deflates a little into the couch, looking sheepish.  
  
 **Can he give you therapy?**  
  
Venom’s voice is innocent as you please, as if it weren’t the very reason Eddie is in desperate need of therapy in the first place.  
  
“No,” Eddie replies tiredly. “He’s not that kind of doctor.” The sheepish look creeps back across his face a moment later as he realizes both Anne and Dan are looking at him questioningly, and he just points to his head in answer.  
  
“What did it say?” Anne looks distrustful.  
  
“Just…” He pauses. This is going to sound like he’s defending Venom, but he doesn’t know how else to give it context. “It didn’t really realize how it was harming me, and it wants me healthy, so… It was asking if Dan was a therapist.” He laughs nervously. The idea of his alien tormentor carefully trying to get him into therapy just sounds ridiculous, now that he says it.  
  
Dan hesitates a little bit, unsure. “…I can refer you to a couple good therapists, if you want,” he offers.   
  
Eddie laughs again. “Yeah, I’m sure that would go over well.” He makes his voice falsely perky before he continues. “ _Yes, hi, I swear I’m not delusional, but I share my body with an alien and I need you to help me get over some trauma from that_. Ooh, maybe a relationship councilor would be good.” Eddie glances between the two of them and closes his mouth when he realizes they don’t find his humor at the situation so funny.  
  
“Look, I appreciate your help,” he says, his voice back to being tired. “But I just… I can’t deal with this right now.”


	11. Chapter 11

Eddie’s surprised he’s able to sleep that night, but he’s utterly exhausted from the day. He only has one night terror, though, and at least that’s a plus, in a sad sort of way.  
  
In the morning he gets ready for the day like he’s not completely fucked up, like he doesn’t have an alien inside him and the beginnings of some pretty serious neuroses. It almost feels normal. Well, except for the part where Venom insists he eat some raw eggs with his breakfast. That’s pretty gross, but perhaps not as gross as his own cum.  
  
He copies his pictures from his phone to a flash drive, and heads to the network building. He prays that Venom will behave itself as he kicks the stand on his motorcycle out front of the building, then heads toward the big glass doors.  
  
Richard greets him with a genuine smile this time. “Eddie! What did I tell you about parking there, man?”  
  
Eddie forces himself to smile back. “No such thing as can’t,” he responds.  
  
Except that he can’t beat the alien inhabiting his body. Except that he can’t get out of this situation. Except that he can’t control his own life.  
  
He shakes the thoughts away and continues toward the elevators.  
  
“Good to have you back,” Richard laughs, and Eddie’s glad that at least the turmoil in his life must not outwardly show.  
  
Up in Jack’s office, Eddie negotiates the price for his photos, signs off on the necessary paperwork, and hands the photos over. Venom doesn’t say a single word the entire time.  
  
He almost feels good by the time he leaves, calling over his shoulder that he’s still thinking about the job offer.  
  
Next he calls a few other news companies, sets up appointments, and makes the rounds to distribute his photos.  
  
By the time he gets home that afternoon, he’d almost call himself cheerful.

  
*****

  
Venom doesn’t so much as touch Eddie for three days, and Eddie starts to wonder if there’s hope after all. He still has bursts of apprehension that Venom will make a move on him, his heart still starts to race at the thought of the monster and the ways it has hurt him, but bit by bit, the constant, permeating stress does start to bleed out of him. He starts enjoying periods where the stress is gone, where he’s just a regular guy doing his best to pull his life back together, periods where he barely notices the pain in his chest, where he doesn’t shake.  
  
Venom still talks to him, reminds him he needs to eat more, tells him when Eddie’s doing something Venom doesn’t like. But Eddie can handle that. He can make small adjustments, he can listen to Venom without letting it get to him too much. Just as long as he’s not being fucked.  
  
Anne and Dan invite him over to dinner one night, and he accepts. He gets a little nervous about Venom every time he does anything around other people, but at least these two already know about the monster.  
  
Dan comments that Eddie looks better, but still asks if he wants to drop by the hospital for some basic tests. “It’s on me,” he offers hopefully, but Eddie still declines. He’s gone through two tubes of Neosporin making sure his shoulder doesn’t get infected, and so far so good on that, and he’s pretty sure Venom isn’t presently eating his organs, so he figures he has it under control.  
  
It’s a pleasant evening, other than the brief mortification as Annie gives him back his night clothes that Venom had left behind last time they were here, but neither Anne nor Dan asks why he ended up naked, and that sort of helps. In fact, they hardly talk about Venom at all, and Eddie senses it’s their attempt to give him a break from his stress instead of just reminding him of it more. Eddie discovers that Dan is actually a really good cook, and he goes home that night with a surprising warmth in his chest instead of his usual pain. It still hurts him to see Annie with another man, but Eddie can acknowledge that he was the one who messed up their relationship. And Dan is a good man.  
  
He hasn’t been sleeping much better, though, and he stays up late into the night, scanning through news articles and avoiding sleep because he knows he’ll only have nightmares and night terrors. He goes to sleep only when Venom forces him to.  
  
The situation’s not perfect, by any means, but he thinks it’s something he can learn to survive. He’s still feeling the effects of the stress, but he doesn’t feel like he’s teetering on the edge of oblivion anymore.  
  
The next day, however, Venom apparently can’t stand it any longer.  
  
**Get on the bed,** it orders out of the blue as Eddie types away on his first freelance investigative news article.  
  
“What?” It catches him completely off-guard, but at the same time, a feeling of horror starts creeping up his stomach.  
  
**I’m tired of this. I’m bored, and I want to do something fun. Get on the bed.**  
  
Eddie’s body immediately starts shaking, and his heartbeat pounds in his ears. “N-no, I thought… Thought we were-“ He thought they were past that, thought it didn’t want to harm him anymore. “Oh god,” he whimpers as Venom pushes his laptop away and makes him stand up. “No, no no no, please…”  
  
He has no power to stop himself as he goes over to his bed and lies down. It’s all coming back to him in a rush, all those things he’s been trying to forget and push down, all those things he thought were behind him. The fear, the trauma, the horror, the shame, the pain.  
  
“Please don’t do this,” he begs, and a part of Venom emerges from his chest and shoves itself violently into his mouth. It expands to fill his mouth, forcing his jaw open wide and pressing in deep, but just shy of making him gag. Eddie’s eyes are wide with terror as more tendrils emerge from his chest and form Venom’s face hovering above him. Its grin is predatory.  
  
Eddie knows he can never escape this thing, that it’s probably happy to fuck him anywhere, but he tries to get up anyway, tries to get away from the horrors he sees coming. But as he starts to push himself up, Venom takes control of his muscles again and forces him back down. Eddie moans helplessly around the mass in his mouth.  
  
More of Venom starts to form from the tendrils behind its head, until its entire upper body looms above him, still connected to his stomach by thick shafts. Eddie clamps his eyes shut as Venom reaches toward him, and he whimpers quietly as the clawed hand strokes down the side of his face.  
  
**“You chose this, you know,”** Venom says softly, and Eddie shakes his head weakly. **“You asked for this, Eddie. You knew exactly what you were signing up for when you let me out of that canister.”**  
  
Eddie dares to open his eyes, but his vision is blurry, tears already welling up.  
  
**“But you came back to me anyway.”** There’s almost a fondness to the creature’s voice.  
  
Venom removes the thing from his mouth, and even though he knows arguing with the monster won’t do any good, he can’t help but croak out a weak “I didn’t want this.” The only reason he allowed Venom to bond with him again was because it was the only chance he saw to stop Drake and the invasion force he was going to bring.  
  
**“But you chose it anyway.”**  
  
Eddie clenches his jaw and doesn’t respond.  
  
**“My brave little host,”** Venom coos almost mockingly, **“giving up his own freedom to save the world.”**  
  
“Just fucking rub it in, why don’t you?” Even when he knows he’s better off not running his mouth off, it’s a hard streak to break. He’s always done it, especially when he’s scared.  
  
**“Oh, I’ll rub it in.”** Venom laughs quietly, and Eddie wouldn’t even have to see Venom to know the monster is grinning. **“And more.”**  
  
Eddie tenses as Venom moves down his body and starts stripping his shirt off, claws tracing up his skin with just enough pressure to make him shudder. When the shirt’s been tossed away, Venom sets to work on his trousers, and soon he’s naked, and Eddie swallows thickly, knowing he’s helpless to protect himself from what’s coming.  
  
Eddie’s arms rest on the bed on either side of his head, and Venom grasps his wrists, each broad hand covering half of Eddie’s forearm. It presses down into the bed, pinning Eddie’s arms as its tongue slides up his chest, runs over the wounds on his shoulder, caresses his neck, and then slithers along his jawline and licks at his lips. Eddie presses his lips together, but a second later lets out a gasp as a tendril coils around his cock, and the tongue slides easily into his mouth. Eddie tries to turn his head away, but of course that doesn’t stop it.  
  
The tongue pushes deeper, and he gags as it tests the boundaries of his throat teasingly. He turns his head the other direction, again uselessly. Ever so slowly, Venom snakes its tongue down Eddie’s throat, and Eddie chokes and gags. His stomach heaves as it slides in farther, but then some part of Venom shifts inside his ribcage and the muscles around Eddie’s stomach go still. Eddie’s a little relieved he won’t be throwing up on his bed, but he’s not too happy with the thought that Venom is messing with his body.  
  
The tongue goes deeper, and deeper, until Venom is face to face with Eddie, and Eddie has his eyes squeezed shut to avoid seeing it. He can feel the bulge of his throat and he continues to gag and choke around it.  
  
Venom leaves its tongue there and focuses its attention lower on Eddie’s body. The tendril around his cock begins pumping in slow motions, while another explores toward his ass.  
  
Eddie tenses at the feeling, but he hardly has time to brace himself before it pushes in without hesitation. Venom slides in and in, and any cry Eddie would have made is silenced by the intrusion down his throat. When it’s uncomfortably deep, the tendril starts fucking him slowly, sliding back before pushing in with a steady force.  
  
Tears run from the corners of Eddie’s eyes and down across his temples, and he wriggles under Venom’s weight as the creature accosts him on multiple fronts.  
  
Venom’s tongue starts fucking Eddie’s throat at the same speed as the tendril, and each slow withdrawal of the tongue makes Eddie hope it will let him breathe, but each time it pushes back deep into his throat, and it’s not long before he starts struggling in earnest. He needs air.  
  
Venom makes a thoughtful hum inside his head. **That need to breathe is annoying, isn’t it?**  
  
Eddie’s eyes open in fear. What does that mean? He’d really rather it not be annoyed with one of his basic life-sustaining functions. He kind of needs to keep doing that.  
  
Venom’s motions stop, and Eddie continues to struggle, his head starting to feel light from the lack of air, his vision fading slowly to black.  
  
In front of him, he just barely sees Venom’s eyes narrow in that way it does when it smiles, and his vision suddenly clears, the slight tingling through his body dissipates. His lungs still pull for air, permeated by that unpleasant feeling of holding his breath for too long, of suffocating, but he doesn’t black out like he was expecting.  
  
Venom laughs in his head and resumes its motions, the tendril in his ass thrusting deeply again, the one around his cock sliding up and down his length, and the tongue down his throat pushing wetly in and out. Eddie struggles weakly again, then falls still and another wave of tears run from his eyes. What has it done to him now?  
  
Somehow the tongue elongates even more, and his gag reflex kicks on again as it presses deeper into him. He struggles in bouts, but it’s all useless.  
  
Venom squeezes his cock and the tendril in his ass thickens, and Eddie shakes his head weakly. He can’t take this. He can’t take any more of the pain and shame and degradation. He can’t take the staleness in his lungs, or the feeling of being so thoroughly invaded from both ends.  
  
He feels something in his cock and his eyes fly open and he tries to lift his head and look down, but he can barely move with the tongue in his throat, and can’t see past Venom’s torso emerging from his own anyway. It’s deep within him, back behind the base of his cock, but it works its way forward, extending through him, pulsing and wriggling as it goes. It takes him a minute to realize it must be another part of Venom, finding another hole to invade but going the opposite way this time. It crawls farther and farther toward his tip, stretching him inside in a way that makes him squeeze his eyes shut and shift his hips in discomfort. Finally it stops, its length filling him from base to tip and still pulsing in a way that makes him squirm.  
  
The tendril in his ass starts moving differently, bulging and shrinking, stretching him wide before letting the strain relax. It’s almost feels like Venom is pumping bulging things into him one by one, the passage of each inflation through his hole making him tense at the pain. He’s pretty sure it’s not actually putting anything more in his body, that this is just a new thing it’s doing with its seemingly limitless ability to shape itself any way it wants. At the same time, though, each bulge brushes against his prostate, and it’s horrible, the way it feels good. He hates feeling good under Venom’s assaults.  
  
It’s a few minutes before the stimulation sets his body off and blood runs into his cock. The feeling of the thin tendril inside it gets tighter and even more uncomfortable as he grows hard, and he would be groaning in discomfort, if not moaning at the pleasure of the stimulation against his prostate, but he can’t do either.  
  
He knows Venom’s goal with stimulating him while it’s got something in his cock, and he hopes that it won’t deny him the orgasm for too long. He just wants this to be over with. He curls his hands into fists and tries to force his body still and calm his mind. His struggling is not doing anything, and it never will. He just needs to get through this, and it’ll be over, for now.  
  
He manages to endure several more minutes of it, of not being able to breathe while Venom throat-fucks him, of the tentacle pumping in his ass, rubbing against his prostate, of the tendril inside the length of his cock making him feel unnaturally stretched, before he finally feels his orgasm on the edge. His body shudders, his balls tighten, but it stays right on the edge and he can’t cum.  
  
Tears continue to run from Eddie’s eyes, and finally the thrusting of the tongue in his throat stops and it slowly, slowly pulls back. The second it is out of his throat, Eddie takes in a desperate gasp, coughs it back out, then hurries to fill his lungs again. After his second breath, though, he finds he doesn’t feel out of breath like he should, and his breathing quickly returns to normal.  
  
**“I want to hear you beg,”** Venom says, its face still right in front of Eddie’s.  
  
“What did you do to me?” Eddie asks instead. His voice is a little weak. His throat hurts.  
  
**“I’ve been feeding oxygen into your bloodstream,”** Venom says carelessly, then a smile creeps back across its face. **“Feeding you my tongue is much more fun when you’re conscious.”**  
  
Eddie just groans in response. The tendril in his ass, still stretching him in pulses, increases its speed and he jerks as the added stimulation sends shocks of pleasure through him. The one around his cock squeezes him, and a small moan escapes him. With a grin, Venom brings him back from his distraction, reminds him that he’s right on the edge. He tries to bear the fucking and the squeezing and the pumping, waits for Venom to remove the tendril from inside his cock, waits for that explosive orgasm he knows is going to follow it, but instead Venom keeps stimulating him, driving him crazy with sensation as it somehow builds up more, and he can’t release. He bucks his hips as another bulge slides into him, writhes weakly beneath Venom as it increases the friction on his cock, and another moan escapes him.  
  
**“Beg,”** Venom says again. **“Beg to cum, and maybe I’ll let you.”**  
  
Eddie squeezes his eyes shut and shudders. He’s not going to drop to the level of begging for this. He hates this and doesn’t want it to be happening. But at the same time, he knows the torment is going to continue until he is allowed to cum and Venom is satisfied.  
  
He’s still hanging on to what little pride remains in him, but he wonders if it’s worth it. Is it worth enduring more of this? Is it worth dragging out this humiliation and torment when his pride probably means nothing? This creature has complete, effortless control over him, and he knows it’ll love to see him break down and beg, but isn’t it also getting a certain amount of pleasure out of seeing him try to resist?  
  
His breathing is picking up, and he guesses Venom is no longer feeding a surplus of oxygen into him. He feels so tight inside and he can barely stand it anymore. He needs to cum. He needs to release. One more press and squeeze and Eddie feels like he’s going to burst with sensation. “Please,” he says, barely controlling his voice. “Please let me cum.”  
  
Venom gives a pleased laugh, but says, **“you’re going to have to do better than that.”**  
  
Eddie’s eyes are squeezed shut, his hips bucking helplessly. Venom still has his arms pinned to the bed on either side of his head, and his hands twitch, his arms pulling weakly.  
  
Venom rubs hard against the underside of Eddie’s cock, right where he’s most sensitive, and Eddie tries to choke back a moan.  
  
“P-please,” he continues begging. “I’m at your mercy. Let me release. I’m- I’m going to explode.”  
  
Venom continues pumping into his ass, brushing against his prostate again and again, but the tendril in his cock doesn’t retreat. His body twitches and jerks as the sensations become even more unbearable. Eddie starts crying again, tears running freely from his eyes.  
  
“I want it,” he says, “I want to orgasm-“ He chokes a little, barely able to stomach the words he’s trying to say. “Want to orgasm while you’re fucking me. I need it more than anything.”  
  
The tendril in his cock shrinks back into him, and Eddie sucks in an inhale, expecting the blinding pleasure to overtake him, but it stops just shy of clearing the way and letting him cum.  
  
**“Yes? What else?”** Venom is entirely too pleased with this.  
  
“I’ll…” His mind races. What else does this damn thing want from him? But he’s getting more desperate, would give just about anything to be allowed to release. “I’ll obey next time. I’ll do whatever you want, just let me have this. I can’t take any more!”  
  
Venom rumbles another laugh. Finally the tendril inside him dissipates, releasing the pressure that was stopping him, and Eddie cums hard, seeing stars and crying out. His body arches beneath Venom, his hands scrabbling at nothing. Venom’s tongue rams into Eddie’s mouth, forcing itself down his throat and breaking off his cry before retreating back into his mouth, letting him moan loudly as it wraps around his tongue. Then it slides into his throat again. Eddie chokes on reflex, but hardly notices as the pleasure rocks through him. His hips buck, his body writhes.  
  
When it finally fades, all of Eddie’s muscles go lax, now feeling loose and satisfied. The tension is uncoiled, and Eddie’s panting breaths pause for one last moan as an aftershock of pleasure runs through him.  
  
He expects Venom to pull out and sink under his skin like it always does after an orgasm, expects this nightmare to be over, but instead notices the movement in his ass has only slowed, not stopped. A moment later he feels Venom shift and grow above him. His mind is barely there, his brain practically shut down from the pleasure, but he lifts his head and watches as Venom forms the rest of its body above him, tendrils turning into legs, its monstrous form looming threateningly. It ends up kneeling on the bed, straddling one of his thighs, and Eddie didn’t realize his legs had opened like that. He flushes a deeper color with embarrassment.  
  
It’s only as he gets his mind back after the pleasure that the fear creeps in. Why isn’t it going away? What else does it want? Venom is still pulsating in his ass, still has his arms pinned to the bed, and Eddie looks up at the grin above him.  
  
**“All warmed up?”**  
  
Eddie’s eyes widen at its words, and it leans forward and licks a trail of slime across Eddie’s throat.  
  
Eddie swallows thickly and squeezes his eyes shut as the tongue explores down his chest. The tendril in his ass pushes just a little deeper into him. Venom is clearly not done with him, and Eddie inhales shakily, trying to brace himself for more. He doesn’t think he can handle it, but what choice does he have?


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey I found inspiration again finally! Have some porn. :) And thanks for being patient.

“Don’t you care about the damage you’re doing to your host?” Eddie rasps out a weak attempt to save himself as Venom’s tongue continues to trail down his body, running back and forth as it makes its way down his stomach.  
  
The tongue retreats long enough for Venom to speak. **“I’ve decided that sometimes a little damage is worth it.”**  
  
Eddie moans miserably as the tongue continues its trip down his stomach. He thought Venom was worried about his wellbeing now, but apparently it’s not as important as fucking him.  
  
Eddie tenses as the tongue nears his groin, but then it doubles back and slides up his body again. Venom’s weight is heavy where it’s still pinning his arms to the bed, and its teeth nip lightly at the soft skin of his throat, and Eddie goes very still, hardly daring to even breathe. Venom opens its mouth and its teeth close around Eddie’s neck. Eddie knows it said it wouldn’t kill him, but the thought crosses his mind and he finds he’s not as afraid of that idea as he is of what else Venom might have in store for him before it’s done.  
  
But a moment later the teeth retreat again, and the movement in his ass speeds up a little, and Eddie groans. His cock is soft and it’s not getting back up any time soon, but the stimulation against his prostate still feels good.   
  
Venom shifts and he feels something hit his thigh, and he lifts his head reflexively and looks down. His breath catches in his throat. Between Venom’s legs is a cock, not overly big for Venom’s size, but still more than sizable simply by virtue of Venom itself being so much larger than any person. As Eddie stares, it moves, growing hard and rising until it’s nearly against Venom’s stomach.   
  
A shiver of fear runs through Eddie’s body. The tendril in Eddie’s ass slowly pulls out and sinks back under Eddie’s skin.  
  
“Oh Jesus,” Eddie moans fearfully. “You’re not going to put that in me, are you? It’s not going to fit!”  
  
 **“I will make it fit.”** Venom grins down at him and releases his wrists, then grips Eddie’s legs under the knees and pushes them up toward his chest.  
  
“No, no, no, please don’t,” Eddie begs, panicking at the thought of having something so large inside him. “I can’t. I can’t take that.”  
  
Venom shifts and settles its cock between Eddie’s legs, lying up against his stomach, and it rolls its hips, sliding the huge cock up Eddie’s belly, and Eddie stares down at it in horror. It’s long enough to span the height of his entire stomach, reaching nearly to the base of his sternum. Eddie lays his head down and closes his eyes, but he can still see it in his mind. All he can think about is what that thing is going to do inside him when Venom shoves it in. His hole is stretched and loose, but not nearly enough for that.  
  
He shakes his head and whimpers quietly as Venom continues to move its hips slowly, rubbing the cock up and down, up and down. His breathing is picking up, and it’s not long before he’s practically hyperventilating under Venom, tears running from his eyes anew. This is going to hurt. He knows it’s going to hurt more than anything Venom has done to him yet, and he’s sure he won’t be able to take it.  
  
He works himself into a state of panic and struggles weakly against Venom’s grip, but the alien just presses down harder on his legs and pins him in place. The only thing that stops Eddie’s rapid breathing is Venom’s tongue snaking down his throat again, but as soon as it’s back out, Eddie coughs a few times, and picks up his quick, shallow breaths again.  
  
It all just circles in his head over and over, images of his ass getting stuffed absolutely full of monster cock, of it filling his body, bulging his stomach, probably tearing him up, and he can only imagine the pain that’ll go with it. He desperately wants this to stop, wants to be away from here, but he’s helpless against Venom.  
  
Finally Venom moves downward, its cock sliding down toward his ass. It pushes his legs upward, forcing his hips off the bed a bit, and lines itself up.  
  
“No, please-“ Eddie tries one last time before it pushes forward, pressing harder and harder against his hole. “Don’t. Please, don’t do this.” Eddie can’t help but let out a terrified sob.  
  
For a moment he thinks the blunt tip will never make it in, but the pressure increases until Eddie feels himself stretch wide as it starts to slide inside.  
  
It almost immediately tears him, and it’s like nothing Eddie has ever felt before.  
  
Eddie wails, and Venom quickly plants a hand over his mouth, not silencing him, but muffling him considerably. The hand grips the entire lower half of his head, but leaves him with just enough room to get a bit of air in through his nose. He heaves in a lungful of air and immediately lets it out in another desperate wail.  
  
Eddie writhes in agony as Venom slowly pushes in farther and farther, and he’s sure he can feel his organs rearranging inside of him as Venom fills him up, stuffs him with more than he was ever meant to take. Tears run from his eyes, and he continues to wail under Venom’s palm, taking gasping breaths between each cry. His hands scrabble at Venom’s shoulders, trying futilely to push it away. He tries weakly to shake his head as more of the cock slides into him. Eddie feels a drip of blood run down his crack toward the bed.  
  
It’s only after Venom’s hips come to rest against him and the monster is still for a minute that Eddie manages to suppress his wails of pain into slightly more quiet groans and gasps. The cock has stretched him to the point that he feels sick with how full he is.  
  
After he has stopped screaming, and for a moment only moans in agony, Venom’s hand slides down away from Eddie’s mouth, wrapping loosely around his throat instead. Eddie continues to cry.  
  
“Please, take it out. It hurts!”  
  
Venom just laughs, and pulls its hips back slowly, then thrusts forward again, and the size of the cock inside him is so huge that everything in his gut feels wrong.  
  
“Please,” he tries again weakly, though he knows begging isn’t going to do any good.  
  
After that first thrust, Venom falls still, its cock sheathed in him to the base, and Eddie can only shake and cry.  
  
 **“Touch it,”** Venom commands. **“Feel how big it is inside you.”**  
  
Eddie can definitely already feel how big it is, and instead of obeying, his hands fall away from Venom’s shoulders and he covers his face as a sob bursts out of him.  
  
 **“Obey,”** Venom growls, its hand tightening on Eddie’s neck and starting to constrict his airway. **“Remember, you promised you’d do what I wanted.”**  
  
Eddie can’t think straight, and all he knows is he’s terrified and in pain. He’s terrified of retribution, and he’s terrified of Venom doing something even worse to him. One shaking hand slides down from his face and he lays it gently on his stomach. It’s bulged out enough that he can clearly feel the shaft inside of him.  
  
 **“Rub it. I want to feel you.”**  
  
Eddie manages to suppress another sob, but a fresh set of tears run from his eyes. He rubs his hand up his stomach, hating the pressure and the fullness and the shape he can feel inside him. It’s disturbing, having something so large in him that his entire gut bulges. He groans, but rubs his hand back down Venom’s length, and Venom nearly purrs in satisfaction.  
  
 **“Harder.”**  
  
Eddie moans at the discomfort as he presses harder against his stomach and rubs up and down again. It’s too big. He can’t take this. He breaks down into another sob and his hand slides down off his stomach to grip desperately at a handful of bedspread, but Venom doesn’t seem to mind. It lets go of his other leg and his neck, and both hands slide behind Eddie’s back.  
  
Venom lifts Eddie up and moves back onto its knees until Eddie is straddling its lap, his body pressed close to its chest. It has pulled part way out of him in this new position, but it suddenly jerks its hips upward, thrusting deep into Eddie again, and Eddie lets out a scream against its chest.  
  
As it starts fucking him hard, Eddie finds his arms wrapping around Venom’s thick chest, his hands gripping at its back, not out of any sense of closeness, but just because he feels like he desperately needs something to hang onto to make it through this.  
  
He feels like he’s being shredded to pieces with each hard thrust into him. He knows his hole is torn, and he wonders what other damage it is doing inside him, and if it will bother to fix that damage when it is done with him. He can feel his stomach bulge out around the organ every time Venom presses in deep.  
  
His screams get quieter as he feels himself rapidly weaken under this treatment, and he thinks distantly that at least that’s a good thing. Hopefully his neighbors won’t call the police again.  
  
Venom fucks and fucks until Eddie’s hands are slipping weakly off its back, and he’s sure he’s going to pass out soon from the pain. There’s no way this can get worse; he’s never felt such agony in his life. But with one particularly hard thrust that must somehow force itself even deeper into him than it has been going, Eddie quickly learns that this can get worse.  
  
Venom’s claws rake down his back from his shoulders to his hips, and the creature actually moans as Eddie lets out a shocked and agonized scream. Each claw tears open a gash down his back as Venom thrusts into him violently, and this time, Eddie does actually pass out.  
  
When he wakes up, there’s no sign of Venom, save for the damage it did. Eddie hisses at the pain as he moves, and rolls slowly off his bed. His legs are weak and don’t catch him like he had hoped, and he hits the floor with a groan. He pulls himself up and looks at the bed, though he can barely keep his eyes in focus over the pain. His sheets are covered in blood, but not so much that he thinks he was out for long.  
  
Slowly he stands up and walks in tiny, shuffling, pained steps to his bathroom as he feels blood trickle down his back and over his ass, as well as down the inside of his thigh. It takes all of his effort just to keep his legs working despite the pain in his ass.  
  
He glances at the damage in the mirror, but feels sick at the sight of it, and quickly turns away. “Venom,” he moans. “Please. Please, heal this.”  
  
There’s nothing but silence in his head, though he knows the alien is still there. “Venom?”  
  
No answer. It’s not going to heal him.  
  
Instead he simply grabs his bath and hand towels and shuffles back to the bedroom. This is all his problem to deal with now.   
  
His sheets are already destroyed, but at the very least he doesn’t want more blood soaking into his mattress. But he has to stop this bleeding somehow.   
  
He doubles the larger towel over and lays it flat on his bed, then quickly sops up the blood running down the lower half of his body  with the hand towel before he lies down on the towel on his bed. He shifts with a grimace, flexing his back to try to put pressure on as much of it as he can to force the bleeding to stop.  
  
Staring up at the ceiling, he lets out a heavy sigh. Is this going to be his entire life now? Waiting day by day to satisfy a sadistic monster’s whims? Sustaining more injuries to amuse it, with no hope of escape for him? It didn’t even force him to orgasm that time. It seemed to get off on its own, probably just through his pain, which is a rather terrifying idea. He shakes his head and tries to stop the train of thought. He just hast to handle this one step at a time.  
  
He tries to think of his next steps, but his mind circles back around and starts on the bigger picture again. This can’t last too much longer. Either Venom’s going to break Eddie to the point where it’s going to have to find a new host, or Eddie will finally decide to find a way to set himself on fire or something just to end this misery. Neither is a particularly bright outcome for Eddie, but honestly, he’d just be glad to be rid of the alien.  
  
He shakes his head again and tries to focus. Right now he needs to do something about his injuries. His own bathroom cabinet, he’s pretty sure, contains nothing in the way of first aid other than bandaids and Neosporin, and neither of those is going to do it in this case.  
  
He’s going to have to go to the hospital, he realizes.  
  
He cringes at the thought. Somebody’s going to find out. There’s no way to explain gashes like these to someone without including the word _claws_. Even if he could somehow get only Dan to help him, he’d still have to go out in public. He’d have to walk and act normal and hopefully not bleed all over his clothing in the process, and really, he doesn’t think he’s even up to the walking part of that task.  
  
He looks over at his trousers where Venom discarded them on the floor, his phone in their pocket. Maybe he can call for help. Maybe he can convince Dan to come here and fix him up.  
  
When he’s pretty sure the bleeding has stopped, he peels his back off the towel with a hiss, and limps over to his trousers. He drops to his knees and digs into the pocket.  
  
He doesn’t have Dan’s phone number, so he calls Annie, and tries to work himself up to speaking without an audible shake as the phone rings.  
  
“Eddie? Hey, what’s going on?”  
  
“Hi,” he says, and his voice isn’t nearly as steady as he had hoped it would be. “I… I need a bit of help.”  
  
There’s a very brief silence, and when she speaks, it’s her down-to-business voice, with just a touch of fear. “What happened?”  
  
“I’m not, like, dying,” Eddie tries to reassure her without actually lying about the situation he’s in. “I just… think I need some medical attention. Can you give me Dan’s number?”  
  
“Oh god. Eddie, are you okay? What did it do to you? Hold on, are you at home? I’ll come get you.”  
  
“No, no,” he says quickly. “I can’t… I can’t go to the hospital like this. I was hoping Dan might be able to come here…”  
  
“How bad is it?” Her voice is still so serious it scares him a little bit.  
  
“It’s my back. I think I’m going to need stitches.” Okay, he’s almost certain he’s going to need stitches.  
  
“Shit. Eddie, what did it do?”  
  
“It just… I mean… It-“ He stutters uselessly. He can’t even begin to think of a way to describe how this may have happened without including the fact that it was violently fucking him. He barely stifles a weak whimper and falls silent, pressing his hand across his eyes and trying to steady himself and not start crying again.  
  
“Eddie?”  
  
“Can I please just have Dan’s number?”  
  
Anne’s voice softens, now a mix of apology and fear. “Sure. I can text it to you, but I don’t know if he’s in surgery right now or not. Are you sure you don’t want me to pick you up?”  
  
“Yeah,” Eddie says assuredly. “I think it’s best if I stay here.”  
  
“Okay,” she says, still not sounding convinced. “But I’m coming over to help you.”  
  
Eddie grimaces, but doesn’t try to argue.  
  
“I’ll send you his number right now.”  
  
She hangs up, and Eddie lowers his phone and sighs. It’s barely a minute before his screen lights up with the promised text, and he quickly calls the number.   
  
“Hello? This is Dr. Lewis.”  
  
“Hey, Dan!” Eddie’s relieved he answered. “It’s Eddie. Hey, um… I need some help…”  
  
“Hey, Eddie. What can I do?”  
  
“I think I need some stitches…” He silently curses his voice for shaking again like it is.  
  
As with Anne, there’s a brief silence. “Can you get here? Do you need an ambulance?”  
  
“No, no…” Eddie says, trying to suppress a grimace. “I can’t… I can’t go to the hospital like this. I was hoping you could come here and do it.”  
  
“Eddie, it’s not exactly hospital protocol to do house calls. I don’t have the supplies.”  
  
“I know, I know.” He sighs. “But just… If anybody else sees this, there are going to be questions, and I’m a little bit worried that, you know… those questions are going to destroy my life.” He fades to a miserable mumble at the end of the sentence.  
  
There’s another silence, and when Dan speaks again, his voice is forced quiet, and Eddie can just imagine him talking into a corner to avoid being overheard. “Did that… _thing_ do it to you?”  
  
“Yeah,” Eddie admits in a defeated tone. “It’s like… claw marks. No way around it. I can’t let anybody see this.”  
  
“Okay,” Dan lets out a little sigh, and pauses, probably thinking through the situation. “I have one followup to do here, and then I can come get you. We’ll just keep it hidden, I’ll schedule a private exam room, it’ll be fine.”  
  
“Can’t you just bring some stuff here?” Eddie’s deflating. He doesn’t have the energy to handle this anymore.  
  
“Eddie, I can’t just steal hospital supplies!”  
  
Eddie deflates further. “Okay.” He takes a moment to collect himself and think. He can handle this himself, right? “You know, it’s fine. I’m sorry I bothered you. I think I can just wrap it or something and it’ll be okay. Thanks for your help, Dan. I’ll… I’ll talk to you later.”  
  
“Eddie, wait!”  
  
Eddie had no intention of guilting Dan, but when he hears Dan’s voice, he feels guilty himself.  
  
“You have to come here, Eddie.”  
  
“I can’t,” Eddie says simply.  
  
Dan forces a sigh. “Okay. Fine. Give me maybe, 30, 45 minutes. I’ll be there.”  
  
“Okay,” Eddie says quietly, still feeling a little bad. “But… Bring _a lot_ of sutures.”  
  
“How bad is this?” Dan sounds a little taken aback.  
  
“Bad,” Eddie says. “Just bring more than you think you’ll need. Please. Thank you.”  
  
After Dan hangs up, it takes Eddie a full five minutes to get his underwear and trousers back on without passing out from the pain, then he limps over to his door and unlocks it so Anne and Dan can let themselves in. After that he makes his way slowly to his couch, where he lies down carefully on his stomach and desperately wishes he never had to move again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you who have been chatting with me in the comments and are expecting the thing I have been calling “the change,” don’t be confused. It has not actually happened as promised yet. It was supposed to be last chapter, but then that scene got long and turned into two chapters, AND THEN I thought of something else I wanted to have happen first, so I pushed it back even more. So, uh, maybe another chapter or two, then you can expect it. I may be starting to doubt my plans and choices for this fic and its ultimate conclusion, so also bear with me while I work through those issues.


	13. Chapter 13

He’s still lying face-down on his couch, starting to drift to sleep out of pure exhaustion despite the pain, when there’s a knock on his door and he jolts awake. He lifts his head from the cushion. “It’s open,” he calls weakly before laying his head back down slowly with a groan. He’d never been so aware before that lifting his head involves so many muscles in his back.  
  
He expects it’s Anne, but instead it’s Dan’s voice he hears as his door opens. “Eddie?”  
  
“Over here,” Eddie says into the cushion, not lifting his head this time. “On the couch.”  
  
He hears the door squeak open a little more, then close and latch, and footsteps move hesitantly across the wooden floor.  
  
“Oh, God.” Dan’s footsteps stop dead a few feet away from the couch.  
  
Eddie tenses, preparing himself for possible panic and a barrage of questions. He wishes now he had spent his time thinking up ways to explain this instead of letting himself doze off. He still intends to do everything in his power to keep Dan and Anne from finding out that he has been repeatedly raped. He’s already far more vulnerable than he thinks he can handle, and the thought of anybody knowing his full situation is definitely more than he can handle. He knows he should get his tear treated as well, but honestly he thinks he’d rather die than deal with that.  
  
Eddie turns his head and looks up at Dan out of the corner of his eye. Dan is staring down at his back in wide-eyed shock. He’s still wearing his doctor’s lab coat and has a backpack in his hand bulging with what Eddie assumes are the ill-gotten medical supplies he had begged him to bring.  
  
“Thanks for coming, Dan,” Eddie says hoarsely, at a loss for what else to say, or how to explain this.  
  
“Jesus, Eddie.” Dan pulls himself out of his shock and looks around the room quickly. For a lack of anything else to use, he grabs Eddie’s new coffee table and drags it over to the couch and sits on the corner of it, leaning down to inspect Eddie’s back. “You should have come straight to the hospital.”  
  
Eddie sort of tries to laugh, but it turns into a cough and he grimaces. “I stopped the bleeding. It didn’t seem like an emergency after that.”  
  
Dan is already digging into the backpack. He pulls out a full box of exam gloves, strips it open, and quickly puts on a pair of gloves before he leans over Eddie and starts inspecting the gashes more closely, touching his back between the injuries gingerly.  
  
He works his way up and down each long gash, giving them at least a cursory look for something or other, Eddie’s not sure what, but he feels Dan pause when he reaches Eddie’s bitten shoulder.   
  
“This is older,” Dan comments quietly, his fingers running gently across the curved line of scabs. “Is this… a bite?”  
  
“Yeah…” Eddie murmurs into the cushion. “That was last week, I think.”  
  
“You should have told me.” Dan sounds a little like a disappointed parent, and Eddie actually cringes.  
  
“It wasn’t so bad,” Eddie tries to reason. He’s about to explain that he kept the injury cared for, but Dan bursts in, his voice on the verge of incredulity.  
  
“Wasn’t so bad? Eddie, you were literally _bitten_ by a _monster_.”  
  
Eddie keeps his face against the cushion and is glad Dan can’t see his grimace. Had he been in a normal situation, a bite like that would have felt pretty far away from manageable, but prior to that bite, his baseline for what was bad had become the gashes on his hips that went untreated for days, so a few dozen small puncture wounds didn’t feel out of his realm to handle. He hopes Dan won’t find out about the cuts on his hips, though, so it’s not like he can use that as his explanation.  
  
“I put Neosporin on it…” Eddie tries weakly instead.  
  
“Eddie,” is all Dan says, his voice somewhere between disappointed and resigned. He lets out a little sigh and continues his exam of the rest of the new gashes. He’s almost done when there’s another knock on the door. Dan stops and looks up.  
  
“That should be Annie,” Eddie says, again without removing his face from the cushion.   
  
Dan calls out toward the door. “Annie? It’s open, come on in.”  
  
Anne enters and Eddie can hear the crinkle of a plastic bag as she strides across the apartment. “Sorry I took so long, I wasn’t sure what Dan could get from the pharmacy, so I picked up some painki- Jesus.” She, too, stops dead in her tracks as soon as she’s close enough to see Eddie lying on the couch. “Eddie, this is bad!”  
  
“I’m aware,” Eddie mumbles miserably.  
  
“No, I mean, this can’t continue! Eddie, if it’s doing this kind of thing to you, we _have_ to get rid of it.”  
  
Eddie lifts his head quickly and makes a sharp hiss between his teeth. “We don’t talk about that,” he says in a low, warning tone. “It can hear everything you say and it does _not_ want to go.”  
  
Anne closes her mouth, but he can tell she’s not happy about it. In his mind, Eddie thinks he can feel Venom watching silently, but it’s unnerving, not knowing what it’s thinking.  
  
Dan quietly goes back to inspecting the last few inches of the farthest cut, and Anne crouches down by Eddie’s head.  
  
“Eddie… What is it doing to you? You can tell us, we’re here to help.”  
  
Eddie squeezes his eyes shut and tries to force back tears. He shakes his head, and his lungs stutter as he inhales.  
  
“Was it punishing you again?” She crouches down a little farther to look straight in his face.  
  
“I don’t know,” Eddie rasps. “I don’t think so. I think it just… likes to hurt me.”  
  
Anne reaches out and strokes his hair gently, and Eddie relaxes just a little bit.  
  
Dan speaks up, his voice in doctor mode, but he’s well practiced at gentle bedside manner. “I’m going to need your trousers to come down a bit,” he says carefully. “I can’t quite see the ends of these cuts.”  
  
Eddie grimaces, but he knows trying to wiggle out of the request isn’t going to do any good. He doesn’t want to expose the cuts on his hips, and definitely doesn’t want them to see the blood around his ass, but Dan can’t fully stitch him up without reaching the bottom of the cuts, and he’s sure that as a doctor, Dan is nothing but thorough. Eddie slides his hands down under him, moving his body as little as possible, and opens his trousers, then slides along the waistband and slides them down just barely a couple inches, pulling them toward the back to try to expose his back without exposing his hips.  
  
It seems like enough for Dan, and he doesn’t comment further, and Eddie tries to relax into the couch.  
  
“Okay, I’m going to sterilize all this and put on a numbing gel,” he tells Eddie. “Just hold still and try to relax.”  
  
Eddie nods, lays his arms by his sides, and hides his face in the cushion again.  
  
The process of cleaning up the wounds is surprisingly less painful than Eddie had expected it to be, and soon his entire back is numb, and Dan gets out the first of probably many suture packs.  
  
Dan is quick and practiced with each stitch, but the task of putting in probably a couple hundred stitches is not a fast process. He doesn’t talk while he’s doing it, though, and Eddie can’t feel a thing, so he drifts to sleep once or twice. He’s wide awake, though, every time Dan gets lower on his back. He’s terrified that he’ll discover more of the damage Venom did.  
  
One by one, the gashes in his back close up, and when Dan finally declares that he’s finished, Eddie lets out a slow sigh.  
  
“Thank you, Dan,” he says tiredly. “I really appreciate you coming to do this.”  
  
“Of course,” Dan responds, though there’s something about his voice… Hesitant? Unsure? Shaken? Eddie supposes it makes sense. The fact that there’s a monster inside Eddie capable and willing to do this kind of damage is a pretty scary concept. And, Eddie realizes, the way he has already adjusted himself to this concept definitely says something about the state of his life.  
  
Dan brings himself quickly back to doctor mode. “Let’s get you up, make sure those stitches hold through normal movement.”  
  
Eddie lets out a quiet groan. He had hoped he could just lie here the rest of the day. “Do I have to?”  
  
“Yes,” says Dan. “If any of those stitches are going to come out, I’d rather it happen while I’m still here than afterward.”  
  
“Okay,” Eddie says regretfully. Slowly he moves his arms, and starts to push himself up. His back is still mostly numb, only the first traces of pain starting to come back through, but his ass is still agony, and he tries his best not to show it. He suppresses a grimace as he gets onto his hands and knees and slowly stands up off the couch. He half expects to feel blood run down his thigh from his tear, but it doesn’t seem to be actively bleeding anymore, which is a small grace in this whole situation.  
  
Dan directs him to do a variety of restricted movements with his arms and back and watches to make sure none of the stitches pop.  
  
“Looks good,” he says. “You’re going to want to avoid touching your back to anything for a while, and don’t get the sutures wet for 48 hours.  
  
Eddie nods. Then he looks to Anne. “Can I- Can I get some of those painkillers?” He doubts regular painkillers are going to put much of a dent in what he’s feeling, but they certainly can’t hurt.  
  
“Sure,” she says, and quickly goes digging in the plastic bag she had set on the table and hands Eddie the bottle, then goes to get him a glass of water while Eddie fiddles with the cap and the foil seal beneath.  
  
He doesn’t particularly want to sit down, so he just stays standing as Anne hands him the glass of water and he swallows down a couple pills. He leans down carefully to place the empty glass on the table.  
  
“Eddie, what is that?”  
  
Eddie’s eyes dart up toward Anne. He finds her looking down toward his waist, and he quickly grabs his trousers with a wince, and finds they’ve slipped down just a little.  
  
Anne verbally stumbles as Eddie fixes her with a wide-eyed and probably terrified look.   
  
“I’m sorry,” she says. “I didn’t mean to- But are those more claw marks?”  
  
Eddie glances down to see just how much had gotten exposed as Dan moves in with a concerned noise.  
  
“It’s fine,” Eddie says quickly. “They’re healing fine.” He pulls his trousers up to cover them again.  
  
“Eddie, this is not fine! What else has it done to you?” Anne steps forward as if intent on looking Eddie over, and Eddie feels himself on the verge of breaking down under all of this.  
  
“I didn’t want to worry you,” he says weakly, still trying to cover all this up, but he has no real explanation he’s willing to give. He shrinks away from Anne a little, but freezes as he feels some of Venom’s tendrils emerge from his shoulder. “Oh no,” he whimpers quietly. “Please don’t.”  
  
Both Anne and Dan take a few steps back as Venom forms its face at the end of its constantly moving connection to Eddie.  
  
 **“I believe the word Eddie uses is ‘rape,’”** Venom says matter of factly, completely unashamed.   
  
Anne’s face drops. Dan goes pale. Eddie wants to sob, but he’s too terrified to move.  
  
“You’re… You’re _raping_ him?” Anne finally says.  
  
 **“Your species’ bodies are capable of such pleasure,”** Venom explains with a twisted smile, and Eddie covers his face. **“The damage is worth it. But Eddie can’t handle much more, I think. Can you fix him?”**  
  
Anne and Dan stare in speechless shock, and Eddie slowly sinks down onto his knees in front of the couch. His chest shakes as he cries quietly into his hands.   
  
When he finally slides his hands down and looks up after a couple moments of tense silence, blinking away tears and trying to see Anne and Dan’s expressions, he can tell Anne wants to come forward and try to comfort him, but he can’t blame her for not wanting to get near the alien partially emerged from his body. He glances nervously over at Venom, and the creature is just watching him quietly. He shudders faintly.  
  
“It’s… not something you can just fix…” Eddie’s voice is barely over a whisper. Venom’s face drops into a somewhat annoyed frown.  
  
 **“You said it could be fixed,”** it says, its eyes narrowing at him.  
  
“I said I’d probably need lots of therapy,” Eddie says, too worn out for this and just trying not to think about Anne and Dan standing right there. “Even that probably wouldn’t just ‘fix’ everything.”  
  
Venom growls quietly, and Eddie flinches away from it. It turns to the other two in the room next, and Eddie can see them both shrink away a little bit more. **“For his sake, you probably want to find a way to help him**.”  
  
It sinks back into his shoulder after that, and Eddie re-covers his face and lets out another muffled sob.  
  
It’s a moment before he feels a hand on his shoulder, and he jumps, but looks up to find Anne crouched in front of him.  
  
“Eddie… I’m so sorry… We had no idea it was this bad…”  
  
Eddie can’t deal with this. He can’t deal with them knowing, he can’t deal with her closeness right now, he can’t deal with any of it. He takes a stuttering inhale, half turns his body and grabs at the arm of his sofa and uses it to try to quickly get himself to his feet.   
  
He bites his tongue to keep from crying out at the pain as he manages to get himself up, and he shrinks away from Anne as she stands up and tries to reach out to him again.   
  
“Eddie, just talk to us. Let us help.”  
  
Eddie stumbles away from her toward his room. “You can’t help,” he rasps out.   
  
“You don’t know that if you don’t let us try! Eddie, you shouldn’t bottle this up. At least talk to us!”  
  
She follows him as he stumbles to his room, and he grabs at the door and quickly slams it in her face before she can get inside. He grimaces at the shocked and indignant noise she makes, and he quickly turns the lock on the doorknob and stumbles back away from the door.  
  
He just wants them to go away. He can’t handle all this at once. He drops to his knees and can’t help himself as he starts sobbing again.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is barely proof-read because I know you guys have been waiting forever for a new chapter. It's going to be a bit of a strange chapter anyway, but let me know if there's anything I need to fix.

He can hear them arguing outside his door. Dan is saying that pushing him right now isn’t going to get him to open it. Anne is arguing that they can’t just leave him alone with that thing, and she’s sure he keeps one of the emergency keys to this door out here somewhere.  
  
Eddie ends up on his side on the floor to alleviate the pain, and he curls up around his knees and cries quietly. He knows he can’t hide from this forever, but right now he just can’t handle it.  
  
It is Venom who finally opens the door, a long tendril of it reaching out of Eddie and flicking back the lock before turning the knob and pulling the door open a little bit. Anne is the first to burst in, but she freezes as she sees the tendril retract back into Eddie’s body. Eddie whimpers and covers his head. When Venom makes no other move, she approaches cautiously.  
  
“Eddie… Hey,” she says softly, laying her hand on his shoulder.  
  
Eddie curls up a little tighter. “…I didn’t want you to know,” he whimpers quietly.  
  
“I know,” she says, “I’m sorry.”  
  
Dan steps in slowly behind her, and Eddie glances up at him before covering his head again.  
  
“You don’t have to be embarrassed,” Anne continues. “It’s not your fault.”  
  
“It doesn’t matter,” he rasps out. Despite the fact that he used to know Anne very well and she was quite intimate with him, just the idea of her knowing he’s had an alien literally up his ass is too much. He’s not even letting himself think about Dan knowing right now.  
  
Dan crouches down next to Anne, and Eddie just wishes he could curl up in a hole and die.  
  
“Please leave me alone,” Eddie says miserably.  
  
“Eddie, we just want to help.”  
  
“You can’t,” he repeats sharply. “You can’t stop it, you can’t beat it. If it wants to- to-” he hesitates to say the next word, “…fuck me, it’s just going to, even if you’re here.” He desperately tries to stop himself from starting to sob again, and only barely succeeds. “I don’t want your help,” he adds before either of them gets a chance to speak.  
  
That, of course, is a lie. He wants help more than he could ever say, but he doesn’t see how it’s possible. The most they could do is treat the damage done, not get rid of the problem. And while even just treating the damage is tempting, Eddie’s really had more than he can take right now, and he just can’t deal with this.  
  
“Please just leave…”  
  
There’s a tense silence, and then finally Dan speaks up quietly. “Let’s just give him some space, Annie. He’s been through a lot today. He could probably use some rest.”  
  
Eddie doesn’t even have to look up, he can practically feel Anne wanting to argue, but something must happen to change her mind: a look from Dan maybe, or the realization that he’s right, or maybe just Eddie’s own body language, and Eddie feels her hand squeeze where it’s still resting on his shoulder.  
  
“Okay,” she says with a quiet sigh. “Okay, we’ll leave if that’s what you want, Eddie.”  
  
Eddie can practically feel his chest tearing open at the resigned sadness of her voice.  
  
“But can I come check on you tomorrow?”  
  
Eddie’s still for a moment, then finally he forces himself to nod. Part of him never wants to look either of them in the eye ever again, but he knows that after some time to cool his head, the company and support might be good for him.  
  
He doesn’t look up as he hears their footsteps slowly retreat, and he doesn’t move as he hears them rustle around the living room for a minute before he hears his front door close, and then the apartment is quiet.  
  
He still doesn’t move for a while after that.  
  
When he finally uncurls himself and pushes his body upright, groaning at the pain, he feels particularly aware of Venom’s presence.  
  
“You know they won’t be able to fix all this either,” he says tiredly into the silence of the room. He doesn’t want Venom getting its hopes up too high with Anne and Dan. Eddie has taken a beating from the creature, and the last thing he wants is for it to turn on either of them when they eventually end up disappointing it with their inability to magically cure Eddie of all his problems.  
  
 **Maybe not,** comes Venom’s reply in his head. **But I’m willing to let them try to repair some of the damage.**  
  
In another situation, Eddie might have laughed. He might have laughed, if bitterly, at the creature’s implication that his life is its to control. He might have laughed because all Anne and Dan will be able to do is repair the physical damage, which Venom is more than capable of but is simply refusing to do. Now, though, he just sighs.  
  
 **They are good for you,** Venom says next. **Let them try.**  
  
Eddie simply nods, defeated. He’s not going to argue with Venom, especially over this.

  
*****

  
Eddie mostly shuts down after that.   
  
He doesn’t have the energy to clean up the blood on his bed, so when he eventually gets himself up, he simply lies down on the half of his bed that isn’t covered in blood, and doesn’t get up until Anne comes back the following day. She brings some heavier duty painkillers prescribed by Dan, though, and at least that dulls the pain to a somewhat more manageable level.  
  
Over the next few days, Anne visits daily to make sure Eddie has everything he needs, and Dan drops by a couple times to check up on Eddie’s injuries.  
  
Having had some rest and some time to think about things, Eddie’s not quite as overwhelmed about the truth of his situation being out of the bag, but he’s still not happy about it. He hates that they know, hates the image of either of them thinking about him being fucked by the alien. He can barely meet their eyes, but he quietly accepts their care.  
  
With the painkillers, Eddie is actually able to get up and move around without feeling like he’s going to pass out from the combined pain of his back, his ass, and the soreness that had set in across his entire body after being so violently fucked. He tries to remember to eat before Venom has to remind him to, and he keeps the TV on at a low volume almost constantly in hopes that it’ll give Venom something to think about that isn’t him, but other than that, he becomes afraid of doing almost anything. He doesn’t go out, he doesn’t finish his article, he doesn’t try to talk to anyone but Anne and Dan.  
  
Venom leaves Eddie alone for a few days again, but Eddie knows better than to trust that the peace will last. Each passing day he gets more and more wound up, expecting Venom to finally come out and fuck him at any moment.  
  
When Anne visits for the fourth time, he’s barely functional. He sits gingerly on his couch, his hands in his lap, his eyes on the floor, his knee jiggling despite the pain it puts on his ass. He’s afraid of doing anything, and at the same time is afraid of sitting still, of boring Venom enough to make it want to amuse itself at his expense. He feels both paralyzed and jittery at the same time.  
  
“Eddie, hey,” Anne puts her hand on his shoulder and crouches down in front of him to try to get his attention. Eddie’s eyes snap to her, but his expression doesn’t change, his forehead constantly creased and his eyes probably sunken and hollow.   
  
“How’s the pain?” She speaks gently, looking at him in concern. “Maybe we should try going out and doing something. Get you out of here for a little bit.”  
  
Eddie shakes his head in a jerky motion. He can’t go outside. What if he hasn’t been eating enough and it decides it needs to kill someone? What if it decides to fuck him in public? He should stay here. It’s safest for everyone.  
  
He feels something shift in his body suddenly, and his muscles reflexively tense. Anne tenses too, and he feels her try to pull her hand away from him, but it doesn’t move. He looks down to see black spreading over her fingers and quickly crawling its way part way up her arm before sinking into her.  
  
His eyes widen. He can feel the alien draining from his body. It doesn’t hurt like it did when Venom was ripped from him in Drake’s lab, but that feeling of its constant presence, its figurative weight inside him, slowly leaves him. It’s a feeling he had always imagined would be accompanied by great relief, but now he feels nothing but panic.  
  
Anne tries to pull her hand away again, but it’s practically stuck to his shoulder. He looks to her face and sees a look of horror that must match his own as the last of the creature seeps out of him and into her arm.  
  
Finally Anne is able to let go, and she pushes herself away and falls back onto the floor. Eddie looks down at his hands. They look no different, but he can tell. It’s gone. It’s all gone from him. It has moved into Anne. “No… Oh no no no no…”  
  
He slides off the couch quickly and drops to his knees in front of her. His heart is racing almost painfully hard. He grips her shoulders with both hands. “No, you can’t. Please, don’t do this. Don’t do this to her.”  
  
Anne looks at him in panic, and he can imagine what she’s feeling as it settles into her.  
  
He grips her shoulders harder, trying to will the alien to come back to him. He doesn’t _want_ it back by any means, but he can’t possibly live knowing that it’s in Anne instead. He doesn’t want her to be subjected to even a fraction of what he has gone through.  
  
“Please,” he begs. “You can’t put her through that. Do what you want to me, but don’t do this to her.” There’s no response, and his voice nearly cracks. “Venom, please.”  
  
Finally Venom forms its face on some tendrils at Anne’s shoulder. It looks at him with narrowed eyes.  
  
“Whatever you want,” Eddie offers. “I won’t fight you. I’ll do what you say. Just please leave her out of this.”  
  
 **“You’re broken,”** Venom says, and Eddie feels his heart sink. He can’t let this happen. He can’t.  
  
“I can do better,” he pleads. “Just tell me what you want.”  
  
The creature’s eyes narrow further. It seems to be thinking about it, and Eddie barely breathes.  
  
“Please,” he tries weakly when Venom still doesn’t respond. “Please come back to me.”  
  
Finally, Venom sinks back into Anne’s shoulder, and Anne looks surprised as she pushes herself up and her arm reaches toward Eddie. He watches in combined hopefulness and terror. Black emerges and covers her forearm and hand, and finally she touches his shoulder again, and the creature starts to seep back into him. Eddie forces back a shudder and closes his eyes, just feeling the alien’s presence inside him again.  
  
Anne breaks the contact with a quiet noise as the last of Venom transfers back into Eddie, and when Eddie opens his eyes again, she still has a look of fear on her face.  
  
“You should probably go,” Eddie says to her quietly. “I think we… have some things to work out…”  
  
“Eddie,” she says, a mix of so many emotions in her voice that he can’t place all of them.  
  
“Just go,” he says more forcefully. “I think I’ll be okay. I’ll call you later.” He feels like he should be more afraid than he is, but all he feels is a sort of numb shock.  
  
He can tell she wants to do something, but it’s clear she’s also still a little freaked out from what just happened, and she doesn’t seem to know what to do. Finally she gets up shakily and hurries out of the apartment, giving him one last glance over her shoulder before she closes the door.  
  
Eddie settles lower on the floor, trying to force his muscles to relax, and he waits for Venom to speak.  
  
 **“Shower,”** is all Venom says, and Eddie pushes himself up and obediently heads toward the bathroom, feeling strangely numb. He knows Venom enjoyed fucking him in the shower before, and figures that’s what it wants now, but what can he do?  
  
He closes the door behind him and carefully starts undressing.  
  
He honestly doesn’t see why Venom had any reason to come back to a broken toy like him when it had a fresh, undamaged option in its grasp, but he’s actually grateful that it did. He couldn’t have handled knowing that Anne was living with what he’s had to deal with. He still loves her, and he’s sure seeing her go through that would have torn him apart even worse than going through it himself. He can’t even process anymore how fucked up all this is. He doesn’t think about how the alien still controls him. All he sees is this one act of kindness in a world otherwise filled with cruelty and pain, and he clings to that. Surely the monster has changed. Things are looking up.  
  
He drops the last of his clothing on the floor and steps into the shower, habitually avoiding looking at his back in the mirror. He closes the shower curtain, turns the water on, and waits for it to warm up before stepping under it. As the warmth soaks into his skin, his hand reaches for the knob again, though not of his own doing. Venom controls Eddie’s muscles to turn the knob, increasing the heat until it’s just on the edge of Eddie’s tolerance. Eddie simply stands under the flow, waiting for what Venom will do next.  
  
In Eddie’s head, Venom hums approvingly.  
  
He doesn’t even tense as he feels a tendril emerge from his lower back and slide down his crack, but he reaches out and braces his hand against the wall in front of him to steady himself against what he knows is coming.  
  
He brings his arm up to his mouth and bites down on the flesh of it as the tendril slides into his ass, stretching the torn muscle and skin painfully. He clenches his eyes shut and tries to keep himself from screaming as it starts thrusting.  
  
He suddenly sees himself, standing under the water with a black tendril forcing itself slowly in and out of his ass, and the change is jarring enough to distract him from what he was just feeling. Its disorienting, and he doesn’t know what’s happening to him. He watches as more of Venom creeps slowly from his body, and despite the disorienting nature of what is happening, he can’t help but focus in on the sight of his own body and what is happening to it.  
  
Venom slowly takes shape behind him. Its arms wrap around him, one moving up to grip his neck, the other stroking its claws softly up and down his ribs. The intrusion in his ass expands, and Eddie can distantly feel the pain of it even as he watches from the outside. His body lets out a muffled scream into the flesh of his arm.  
  
When Venom’s body is fully formed behind him, the tendril in his ass replaced by its massive cock, Eddie can tell his legs aren’t supporting his body anymore; they’ve given out and the creature is the only thing holding him upright. It thrusts its hips forward hard and he screams again, and outside of himself, Eddie shudders. It’s horrifying to watch. He knows how much it hurts, can feel the pain on the edge of his consciousness, but at the same time, it doesn’t quite feel real. He knows it’s him that this is all happening to, but at the same time, the person he’s watching doesn’t feel real. _He_ doesn’t feel real.  
  
He can see his gut bulge outward with every hard thrust into him, the shape of the cock being forced into his body clearly visible every time. Venom’s hand slides down over Eddie’s stomach, and it thrusts in deep again then holds itself there, its hand feeling itself inside him, stroking up and down as Eddie hears groans of misery slip from his own mouth.  
  
Eddie wants to retch at the sight, and he wishes he could look away from what he’s seeing, but he can’t. Venom pulls back and thrusts in again, feeling itself bulge out his stomach, then picks up its pace and starts pounding his ass.  
  
Eventually Eddie’s screams die down until he’s only sobbing quietly, his arm falling away from his mouth with the dark indents from his teeth still visible in his skin. Venom’s tongue snakes up the side of Eddie’s face, then works its way into his mouth, and he watches himself choke as it slides down his throat. His eyes clench shut again, but it doesn’t matter; he can still see himself going through this.  
  
His throat, like his stomach, bulges under Venom’s hand as its tongue goes in deep. Eddie’s strangely aware of the sight of his own lips stretching around the intrusion as it thickens more and more the deeper it goes. His body is jerking weakly as he chokes and gags.  
  
He hears Venom’s voice inside his head, and he’s not quite sure how that’s possible considering his current circumstances, but he doesn’t have long to think about it.  
  
 **I could cum inside you, you know. How much do you think you could take?**  
  
Eddie doesn’t respond, of course; he can’t. But a moment later Venom lets out a groan and thrusts in hard one last time, and Eddie sees his own eyes widen, and then the bulge in his stomach gets somehow bigger. He sees Venom shudder slightly, its grip on his neck and stomach tightening, and Eddie becomes peripherally aware of a new, even stronger pain as his stomach swells and swells.  
  
His eyes roll back in his head, and then everything stops, and he can’t see himself anymore.  
  
The next thing he knows his body feels impossibly hot, and he blinks his eyes open and tries to figure out where he is. Everything is a slightly dirty white, and as he moves, he realizes he’s lying crumpled in the bottom of his tub, hot water cascading down on him. His body hurts, and for a moment he doesn’t know why everything’s in so much pain. Then it comes back to him: Venom ripping open his back as it forced him to ride its cock, tearing him with the massive girth of it.   
  
He gets up slowly, and there’s fresh blood washing down the drain. He must have torn something open again when he fell. He groans and gets the rest of the way to his feet. He doesn’t know why his entire gut hurts as much as it does.  
  
 **This will only continue to impair your functioning,** Venom says in his head, and he feels some of its substance slide into his aching hole. **I will fix it since you were so good.**  
  
It forms to the shape of him, and then the pain in his ass and gut slowly subsides, and Eddie nearly feels like a whole new person. Over the last few days, he had hardly even been aware anymore how much the pain of that injury was slowing him down, how difficult it was making everything. With the pain suddenly gone, he stands the rest of the way up easily.  
  
“Thank you,” he says gratefully as the last of the blood rinses off his body and the water runs clear. That makes two nice things Venom has done for him. Things are looking up, he’s sure of it now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am no expert or psychologist, but I have done a fuckton of research on Stockholm syndrome and related psychology, so if you want to casually chat about the subject or have any questions on why Eddie’s reacting to things in the way he is, hit me up! I realize what he’ll be doing from here on out may not immediately or outwardly make sense, but I have tried my best to make it realistic, and am happy to discuss the deep inner workings of his mind as I see them. :)


	15. Chapter 15

“No, I’m fine,” he says into his phone, trying to reassure Anne for the third time. “I told you, it didn’t do anything to hurt me.”  
  
“Okay,” she says, but she still doesn’t sound sure. “Just please don’t hide anything anymore. We’re here to help you. I don’t want you to be suffering alone…”  
  
“It’s okay,” Eddie says. “Things are better now. I think it understands.”  
  
“Understands what?”  
  
“Just… That it was hurting me.”  
  
“Eddie… I think it had a pretty clear understanding of that before…”  
  
“Yeah, but it’s just… It’s different now.”  
  
There’s a brief pause on the other end of the line. “What did it do after I left?”  
  
“It… Nothing.” Eddie is starting to get a little bit frustrated at her probing. He’s not about to detail how he just fell in the shower, and he can’t tell her that Venom healed him, because she never knew in the first place about the injury it healed, and he’s not about to open that can of worms. “I think it was actually happy with me.”  
  
Anne starts to ask another question, and Eddie simply cuts her off. “Look, I don’t know what changed its mind, but I’m not going to look a gift horse in the mouth, alright?”  
  
Anne falls silent for a moment. The moment stretches on, and Eddie imagines her just gearing up for a new argument. When she still doesn’t speak, he starts to think maybe something’s gone wrong with the call.  
  
“Annie?”  
  
A sob bursts from her mouth. “Eddie, I was so scared. I know what that thing has done to you, and I thought it was all going to happen to me too, and, and…” She breaks down into tears, and Eddie feels like his chest is ripping open at the sound.  
  
“Hey, hey,” he says, trying to calm her. It feels weird to be on the other end of this, after all he’s been through lately. Anne’s been the one trying to comfort him for days, but suddenly the tables have turned. “It’s okay,” he says, scrambling for something to make her feel better. Even in the years he lived with her before they split up, he’d rarely hear her cry, but when she did cry, it was always a sound that knocked him completely off balance.   
  
“It’s not okay,” she snaps before he manages to stumble his way toward something that would comfort her. Her voice is uneven as she tries to control her crying. “I can’t even say how grateful I am that you convinced it to leave me alone, but I’m worried! I’m worried about you, and I’m worried about what else it will do, and you can’t convince me that it’s all okay when that thing has been _raping and torturing_ you!”  
  
Eddie physically cringes at her words. Venom has put him through the wringer, he won’t deny that. But how does he convince her that that’s changing now? “It’s hard to explain, alright? You didn’t have it for very long, but there’s like this… sense you get about it. I can just feel it, okay? It’s going to be better now.”  
  
“Eddie, you have to know as well as I do that that thing did not regret what it was doing to you. It wanted us to just ‘ _fix_ ’ you so it could continue using you!”  
  
“I know! I know!” Eddie rubs his hand across his face. “Just… trust me, okay? Don’t worry about me.”  
  
Anne is silent again, then finally, quietly, she says, “alright. If you say so.” But Eddie knows that tone. She’s not convinced. She’s saying what she knows he wants to hear, but he’s sure this isn’t going to be the last of the argument. This is what she does when she knows she won’t win, when she knows she needs to reassess and try from a different angle.  
  
Eddie sighs quietly, but he doesn’t want to argue about this anymore either, so he doesn’t push it. “I’ll call you again tomorrow, okay? I’ll be fine, I promise.”  
  
“Okay…”  
  
Eddie tries not to think too hard about the hesitance in her voice before he hangs up.  
  
He stands in his kitchen as he shoves his phone back into his pocket, and for a moment, the silence around him is deafening. It’s actually a relief when Venom’s voice sounds through his head.  
  
 **Your mind is doing interesting things.**  
  
“What?”  
  
Venom practically chuckles in his head. **Something changed when I came back to you.**  
  
Eddie stutters, trying to piece together an answer while still trying to figure out what Venom means. “I mean, I was grateful. You know, that you’d do what I asked. I was afraid you were going to hurt Annie…”  
  
For a moment Venom doesn’t answer, and Eddie starts to feel a little nervous.  
  
“You won’t hurt her, right? You’ll stay with me?”  
  
 **I’ll stay with you as long as you keep amusing me.**  
  
Eddie relaxes a little. He can handle that. He can keep Venom amused if it’ll keep it in him and away from Annie. He doesn’t think it’s going to really hurt him again, so it should be easy.  
  
 **You care a lot about her.**  
  
“Of course I do. I still love her.”  
  
 **But you ruined your relationship.**  
  
“I was stupid,” Eddie says quietly, feeling his heart twinge in pain. “And I know I don’t deserve her anymore… But I’d do anything she asked, to get her back.”  
  
 **You are _mine_ ,** Venom says, and Eddie reflexively twitches at the possessiveness in its voice. **You are _mine_ and you will do what _I_ say.**  
  
Eddie puts his hands up in front of him. “Okay, okay. Whatever you say.”  
  
 **Prove it to me.**  
  
“What do you want me to do?”  
  
 **Strip. Get on the bed.**  
  
Eddie swallows thickly. He’d been expecting this. Venom hasn’t fucked him since it tore his back open days ago. It was only a matter of time.  
  
He turns and moves shakily toward his bedroom, trying to remind himself that it’s not going to be so bad this time. He can handle this.  
  
Once in his room, he closes his door and takes off the clothes he had put on after his shower barely an hour ago. He moves toward the bed and climbs onto it.  
  
 **Kneel.**  
  
Eddie gets onto his knees on the mattress and waits for his next order. A tentacle emerges from his forearm, coils slowly around it a couple times, then lays itself into his palm. Eddie lifts his hand and looks down at it. The tentacle grows slowly longer.  
  
 **Fuck yourself with it.**  
  
Eddie swallows again, but he gives a weak nod. This isn’t so bad, he tells himself. If it’s going to let him be in control of what is happening, Eddie can do this. He closes his fingers around the tentacle. It’s firm but still slightly pliable, the shaft only a little thicker than Eddie’s own cock.  
  
He brings it down below and behind him and uses his other hand to pull one cheek open as he probes at his hole with the tip. Compared to Venom’s thick cock, this shouldn’t hurt much at all. He bites his lip as he spreads his legs a little wider, then slowly slides the stiff tendril up into himself.   
  
He lets out a quiet groan as he does. The stretch is never pleasant, but it doesn’t really hurt this time. He slides it in just a bit deeper, but stops before the length inside him gets too uncomfortable. Eddie takes a slow breath, pulls it back, then pushes it in again.  
  
He sets up a slow rhythm, working it in and out of himself at a tolerable pace. This isn’t bad at all, he thinks. This is easy, compared to what he has been through.  
  
 **Deeper.**  
  
Eddie shivers at the lust in its voice, but he can feel its expectation and want. He pushes the tendril deeper, in to the point of real discomfort, but can still feel that Venom wants more, and he pushes it in all the way up to where he’s gripping it. He lets out another quiet groan. He’s pretty sure it has grown even longer since he put it in himself. But he feels Venom is satisfied with his obedience, and he pulls it back as far as he can reach before pushing it deep into his ass again. He squeezes his eyes shut. It’s uncomfortable and unpleasant now, but still, this is better than Venom fucking him wildly with a tentacle twice as thick.  
  
He fucks himself in long thrusts. Venom doesn’t say anything, so he keeps doing it, until his muscles start to tire with the strain of holding himself in this position as he does what Venom told him to. He pushes it in again and a shudder works through his body.  
  
“How long do I have to do this?”  
  
 **Until you cum.**  
  
Another shiver rolls through him. He’s not aroused in the slightest, and hadn’t exactly intended to become so. But if that’s what Venom wants, then that’s what he’ll do. He slides his other hand around in front of him and wraps it around his cock.   
  
Eddie strokes himself in time with his thrusts, but it’s hard to fuck himself like this and try to get off on it, and he starts trying to position the tendril in his ass to hit his prostate to help himself along. It’s stiff, though, and offers so little bend that he can feel the tip of it press outward on his stomach with each thrust, and he can’t quite get it to rub him how he needs.  
  
Venom lets Eddie continue like this for a few minutes, trying again and again to find a good position with the tendril as he strokes himself, but doesn’t get hard.  
  
 **You need help?**  
  
Eddie is only able to let out a quiet moan, but he doesn’t need to answer, because the part of the tendril just inside his ass immediately swells, and Eddie moans louder as it presses into his prostate.   
  
As he pulls it back, however, it is stopped by his own muscles, and his first test of the new boundaries hurts enough to make him immediately stop before the bulge comes anywhere near actually leaving his body. He resorts to shorter thrusts, rubbing the knot inside him against his prostate.  
  
Finally his cock hardens in his hand, and he tightens his fist around it just a little, and moans as the pleasure starts to seep through his body.  
  
He works himself up and up, until his back is arching with the pleasure, and he lets out a cry. Black crawls over his mouth, sealing over it, then extends into his mouth, filling it and forcing his jaw open wide. Eddie chokes as it elongates toward the back of his throat, but tries to put his focus back on the pleasure. He has to do this until he cums, and he intends to do just that, if only to get it over with.   
  
He works the tentacle in his ass a little more slowly but a bit harder, forcing bursts of pleasure through himself, and the one in his mouth grows and retracts in time with his own motions, sliding down his throat deeply enough to cut off his moans every time. He takes quick gasps each time it retracts enough to let him, but he’s sure he couldn’t be getting enough air from that, with as worked up as his body is. Venom must be breathing for him again.  
  
It’s hard not to focus on the intrusion in his mouth, to keep the pleasure coming enough to not lose his erection, but the next thing he knows black is emerging from the arm he has in front of him, covering his own forearm and hand. He pauses and looks down. Over his own hand is the creature’s monstrous hand, still wrapped around his cock. He loosens his grip reflexively, and the hand does the same. Eddie takes a slow breath while the tendril in his mouth has paused with his own motions, outside of his throat.   
  
It’s a little scary, seeing those claws so near his cock, but as he moves his hand again, he realizes he’s completely in control of it, and he wouldn’t have expected it, but it does feel better where it touches him. His own touch isn’t bad, but as he gives his cock a careful pump, the smooth feel of Venom’s skin against him arouses new sensations.  
  
He takes a deep breath and continues his motions, squeezing himself a little harder again, while being careful not to get those claws too near his skin.  
  
It’s a few minutes more before he finally feels it really building up within him, and he pushes himself a little harder, toward that finish line he can feel coming.  
  
Right when he’s on the edge, Venom takes control at the last moment, the bulge in his ass growing yet bigger to press hard into his prostate and the tendril pushing deep into his throat as the hand around his cock squeezes him harder and gives one last pump before Eddie cums silently, his eyes squeezing shut as it all rushes through him.  
  
His lungs pull for air, and his body tightens as Venom continues to stroke him hard, until the last shudders of pleasure leave him, and his body goes lax, slumping where he’s kneeling on the bed.  
  
 **Very good,** Venom praises, and the covering over Eddie’s hand sinks back into him, and his other arm is let free of the tendril that was wrapped around it. The intrusions in his ass and mouth, however, don’t sink away like they usually do. Eddie shifts a little uncomfortably as the one in his ass sinks a little deeper into him before forming a bulge outside his hole as well as inside. He wants to groan as he touches the plug experimentally, but he can’t even breathe.  
  
Both hands go to his face and throat next, and he ignores the cum coating the hand that was previously wrapped around him. The black cover over his mouth changes under his touch, crawling away from his skin and forming itself instead into a large ball in his mouth, holding his jaw open. Eddie’s throat convulses as he tries to gag the whole thing out, but it’s deep in his throat, and the ball in his mouth seems to grow as he opens his jaw, keeping it just too big to get past his teeth.  
  
He grips at his throat, feels the bulge in it, and squeezes his eyes shut. He should be suffocating, but he doesn’t even feel dizzy. He tries to groan, and instead collapses forward onto the bed, his body tensing and shifting at the discomfort of the gag and plug inside him.  
  
He lies there for what feels like forever, until he’s almost used to the fact that he can’t breathe. It’s still unpleasant, still feels like he should die at any moment, but he doesn’t, and eventually pushes himself back up. His teeth clench against the ball in his mouth, but it doesn’t give, and he wipes a bit of saliva from his lips.  
  
He gets off the bed, walks in slow, awkward steps toward this clothes, and slowly puts them back on.  
  
Leaning forward only makes him drool more, and he wipes his mouth against his sleeve before picking his head up. He winces. The thing in his throat feels like it’s throbbing inside of him.  
  
 **I want to eat,** Venom says, and Eddie nods and heads slowly to the kitchen. Walking is awkward with the plug deep inside him, but at least eating means Venom will have to free him from the gag.  
  
However, when he gets to the kitchen, Venom takes over, covering Eddie and turning them into the massive monster that Venom is, and Eddie can only watch silently as Venom goes rummaging through the fridge before tearing into the package of chicken breasts Anne had brought him yesterday. It eats them raw, then finishes off the carton of eggs, shells and all, before chugging the remains of the half gallon of milk Eddie had. When it finally seems satisfied, it sinks back into Eddie and leaves him standing there with the gag still in his mouth.  
  
Eddie turns and walks slowly back to his room.   
  
He tries to do some reading, then tries to work a bit on his article, but is too uncomfortable to focus, and eventually decides to just go to sleep instead.  
  
It is not a restful night.  
  
The tentacle down his throat feels like it’s throbbing, and every time he starts to drift off, his body automatically tries to start breathing again, and he’s pulled back to wakefulness by the feeling of suffocating. As if Venom were actively trying to make it worse, the plug in his ass moves now and then, flexing inside him, growing occasionally, pressing into sensitive spots, and Eddie is jolted awake again and again.  
  
When morning finally comes his eyes ache and he’s exhausted, but he’s honestly thankful to be getting this kind of treatment from Venom instead of a hard, painful fucking. It’s nice of Venom to not even hurt him. The creature seems to be softening up on him, and his situation is finally feeling manageable. He tenses as Venom throbs hard in his ass, then he relaxes back into the bed. As long as it stays happy with the knowledge that he belongs to it, he’s sure things will be alright.


	16. Chapter 16

It takes a couple days for Eddie to convince Anne that Venom doesn’t plan on leaving him again, and it is safe for her to be near Eddie. When she does finally come over, Eddie is confident that Venom will behave itself.  
  
“Hey, Eddie,” she says as she steps through the front door. Dan follows behind her and gives Eddie a friendly wave, though Eddie can sense he’s nervous.  
  
“It’s okay,” Eddie assures him. “It’s not going anywhere, I promise.” He moves away from him anyway, back into his kitchen, hoping a bit of room will help Dan feel a little more relaxed.  
  
“How are you doing, Eddie?” Anne sets a plastic bag down on his counter, and Eddie internally smiles. He’s been doing well lately, but it’s still a little endearing that she keeps bringing him things.  
  
“Fine, great,” he answers with a genuine smile. “Things are a lot better.”  
  
“That’s good to hear.” Anne sounds surprised, despite the fact that he’s been assuring her of this for days.  
  
Eddie keeps the kitchen island between himself and them, if only to make Dan more comfortable, but Dan still seems on edge.  
  
“I, uh, thought I’d check your stitches today,” Dan pipes up suddenly. “See how you’re healing up.”  
  
“Oh, yeah, thanks, Dan,” Eddie says, reaching reflexively for his shoulder and feeling a few of the stitches on his back through his shirt.  
  
They fall into silence again, and Eddie can’t help but feel uncomfortable. They’re both nervous, and he really wishes they weren’t. He turns his head away from them slightly and speaks quietly. “Venom… Could you maybe assure them that you’re not going to do anything?”  
  
Venom emerges from the back of his shoulder, and he watches its face form beside him. It looks at Anne and Dan, and Eddie can tell both are trying to resist the urge to step back away, despite the distance already between them.  
  
 **“I do not plan on leaving Eddie again,”** Venom says helpfully. **“You can relax.”** It seems for a second that that is all it’s going to say, but then it decides to speak up again: **“I have to say, he is much more… cooperative now.”**  
  
Eddie doesn’t even flinch at the words. It’s true, he hasn’t been fighting Venom at every turn since it started treating him better. Dan, whose mouth had been slightly agape at seeing the alien again, closes his mouth suddenly. Anne’s brows rise.  
  
“What do you mean by cooperative?” Anne asks challengingly.  
  
Eddie watches Venom out of the corner of his eye as its grin slides out of his view, and it sinks back into his shoulder without saying anything else. He glances back at the other two, and Anne looks angry. He’s not quite sure why.  
  
“You know,” Eddie starts thoughtfully, “I think it just wants to be wanted…” It can’t have been nice to need to be in a host to survive, and to have that host hate you. Asking Venom to come back to him was when everything started to change, and he can’t help but think that that must have been the reason for the change.  
  
Both Anne and Dan stare in dumbfounded silence for a minute.  
  
“Eddie,” Anne says hesitantly. “You can’t tell me you _want_ it after all it’s done to you.”  
  
Eddie mentally stumbles a bit, feeling suddenly self-conscious. “I mean… It’s not so bad. We have an agreement now. It’s okay.”  
  
Neither says anything, but Dan looks over at Anne, and they share a knowing look that makes Eddie think they’ve been talking about him recently.  
  
“Eddie,” Dan says, and he clears his throat nervously. “Can you tell us what it’s like now? What does the alien do since your… agreement?”  
  
Eddie lets out a frustrated huff of breath. “It doesn’t hurt me,” he says, but he doesn’t see how the rest of it is any of their business. Just because they know it has fucked him in the past doesn’t mean he wants to share the private details of his life now. “I told you, I’m fine,” he says, turning away and reaching for a glass by the sink. “You don’t have to worry about me.”  
  
“We’re just concerned about your health,” Anne says carefully. “It really hurt you, and that can… you know, have other effects…”  
  
Eddie finishes filling the glass with water and turns back to them. “I’m fine,” he repeats, not seeing what the big fuss is about.  
  
Dan tries next. “Can you at least tell us how you’re feeling about the alien now?”  
  
What is this, a therapy session? Eddie laughs a little. “I think we can learn to live together,” he says, humoring them. “It’s been fixing damage, not causing it now.”  
  
Dan and Anne share another brief look, and then Dan motions over toward Eddie’s living room. “Can we sit?”  
  
Eddie makes an assenting gesture, and they move over and sit down.  
  
“Eddie,” Dan says, his voice creeping into doctor mode. “This thing has put a lot of stress on you. We’re just concerned. There’s a condition called Stockholm syndrome, and sometimes it can-“  
  
Eddie laughs again. “I know what Stockholm is. I’m not imagining things. Venom’s actually gotten better.”  
  
Anne cuts in. “It’s just… hard to believe that it would make such a big change so suddenly,” she says, her eyes watching him carefully, trying to read him.   
  
“Well, it did.”  
  
“What changed?”  
  
Eddie sighs. They’re trying to corner him somehow. He leans forward, rests his forearms on his knees, and looks at them seriously. “I don’t know what you’re trying to uncover with all this, but there’s nothing to uncover.”  
  
“We’re trying,” Anne grits out, apparently determined, “to uncover the fact that man-eating, rapist monsters don’t suddenly turn nice,” she says bluntly. “We’re trying to make sure you’re actually okay.”  
  
“Can’t you just trust me?” Eddie growls, getting even more frustrated. “I’m not lying to you. I’m fine!”  
  
He feels Venom emerge from his shoulder at the same moment as he sees both of them shrink back in fear.  
  
Venom laughs beside his ear. **“They’re determined, aren’t they, Eddie? They think there’s something wrong with you.”**  
  
Eddie glances over at it. It feels the same way he does. They’re prying into areas that aren’t their business, and there’s not even anything to uncover there. Eddie starts to nod, but Venom speaks again.  
  
 **“You’re right, Anne,”** it says with a grin, and an unexpected feeling of fear creeps into Eddie. **“There’s something very, very wrong with him.”** It glances over at Eddie, and his blood starts to run cold. What is it talking about? **“But I like it,”** it finishes.  
  
Its tongue slides down his jawline, and Eddie goes stock still, not sure how to react. Why is it doing this now? He doesn’t want Anne and Dan to see this. It’s only going to make matters worse. “Wait,” he says weakly. “Y-you can’t-“ But his words are cut off as the tongue slides into his mouth, and extends straight down his throat.  
  
Eddie’s eyes are clamped shut as he gags, his head spinning. He doesn’t understand why this is happening. He feels Venom shift across his body, feels it turn him to the side and start to push him down across the couch. When he feels Venom jerk slightly above him, and both Anne and Dan cry out in surprise and fear, Eddie forces his eyes open. He can’t turn his head, the tongue is still deep in his throat, but he rolls his eyes over and sees both struggling against black tendrils wrapped around their arms and bodies. He traces the tendrils back to the creature above him, and is faced with Venom’s grinning maw. He shakes his head weakly, tries to reach up and push Venom away from him, but Venom pushes back, holding his arms down.  
  
The rest of its body forms above him, and he can feel its weight pressing into the couch as it straddles him. He clamps his eyes shut again.   
  
With its tongue still down his throat, sliding wetly in and out, one of its hands reaches down and skillfully opens his trousers. It reaches in, and Eddie’s body tightens as it grabs his soft cock and strokes. It toys with him for a minute, then he finds himself being flipped over onto his stomach, the tongue finally leaving his mouth. He gasps, coughs, takes in another gasp, and then whines in fear. Distantly, he’s aware of Anne begging to be let go, begging for Venom to stop this.  
  
Eddie shivers at the feel of Venom’s claws scraping lightly down his lower back. It grips the waistband of his trousers, and slowly pulls them down, exposing his ass. Eddie braces himself.  
  
“Oh, God,” he hears Dan say weakly, and he opens his eyes and turns his head toward him, afraid that Venom is hurting the other two. It owns him, can do what it wants to him, but it doesn’t own them, and Eddie couldn’t just stand idly by while it hurts them.  
  
Instead, he sees Dan looking at Venom, still horrified, but with nothing apparent happening to Dan himself, or to Anne.  
  
“You can’t do that to him,” Dan practically begs. “The damage it would cause is-“  
  
Venom doesn’t reply, and Eddie only knows what Dan is talking about as it jerks forward and its huge cock finds his hole with an accuracy only possible because it shares his body. There’s no slow press, no working him open gradually, it lances into him all at once and tears him open again as it fills his body. Eddie screams, turning his head to muffle himself in the couch, and through the blinding pain, he can feel his organs rearrange as the huge member goes into him. He can feel his stomach bulge against the couch below him.  
  
He thinks perhaps he might have passed out for a moment from the pain, and when he comes back to himself, Venom is reaming him relentlessly, its tongue wrapped around his throat, but he’s outside of himself, simply watching this horror unfold, except that in the back of his mind, he thinks he can still feel the agony of being sodomized with something thicker than his arm.  
  
It doesn’t feel real as it fucks him. Eddie can hear himself wailing in agony, its cock far too big for him to take without damage, but he’s watching from above, not lying with his face pressed into the couch. He looks over, sees Anne and Dan still held in place by the creature’s tendrils. Dan is watching in horror. Anne has her eyes clenched shut and her head turned away, tears running down her face. He looks back at his own body, his symbiote above him, its arms wrapped almost protectively around him as it thrusts hard and fast. It hurts and it’s horrible, but at the same time, it’s like it’s not actually happening to him.  
  
He must be imagining it, he decides, and he tries to take solace in the knowledge that it’s not real, that he’s not actually being hurt, except that he can feel it almost as if it were real. Still, he’s separated from it to some degree, so it’s not as bad as when Venom actually had fucked him this hard.   
  
He feels himself getting exhausted as the assault continues, but intentionally doesn’t put much thought into why he’d be wearing out if he’s just imagining this. The screams and wails coming from him grow quieter, then stop almost completely, even though Venom doesn’t. He still hears himself grunt forcefully with each thrust, a sob or a moan escaping every once in a while. He stares down at his body’s hands, shaking and pale as they grip desperately at the cushion below him.  
  
Venom’s tongue slides away from his neck and back into its mouth, and it leans down by his ear, and murmurs to him, though its voice isn’t particularly quiet. **“I’m going to give you a gift, Eddie.”** Its tongue snakes out and licks up the side of his face. **“I’m going to give you the ability to take my cock any time without the damage.”**  
  
Eddie’s body grunts heavily as Venom forces itself hard into him, then holds itself there, and for a moment, Eddie’s not quite sure what’s happening. He looks over toward Anne and Dan again. Anne is crying, and now Dan has his head turned away and his eyes closed, too.  
  
When he looks back at himself, he realizes the pain is gone. He still feels stretched and uncomfortable in the back of his mind, can still clearly imagine the feeling of his stomach bulged grotesquely around the cock inside him, but the feeling of being torn open, raw and bleeding, is gone. Eddie takes a breath, and so does his body, and it feels a little less strained. He watches some of the tenseness relax from his body.   
  
Venom chuckles quietly, and picks up its pace again. Eddie grunts with the thrusts, but he imagines now it’s more that the huge cock is literally forcing the air out of him. It’s still not particularly painful.  
  
Eddie’s body moans as Venom’s hand slides under his hips, and outside of himself, he can feel a tingle of arousal start to build after a minute as Venom’s hand moves in repetitive motions below him.  
  
As Eddie’s sounds change, Eddie catches sight out of the corner of his eye of Anne slowly opening her eyes and turning her head toward him again. Her eyes are wide as she watches Venom fuck him. Eddie moans again and Anne looks a little disgusted beneath the constant look of horror. Outside of himself, Eddie moves from where he has been floating, going closer to Anne, but she doesn’t seem to see him, and he’s sure he’s imagining all of this.  
  
He hears himself cry out, and he glances over, suddenly aware again of the feeling of pleasure in the back of his mind, and he watches his own hips buck a few times, the rush of an orgasm shaking through his detached body at the same time as it must be going through the body he’s watching.  
  
Venom falls on top of him, its eyes fine slits, its face looking satisfied. After a minute, it pulls its massive cock slowly out of him, and takes the time to pull up his trousers. It flips him over again and fastens them, then dips its tongue into his open, panting mouth, and seeps into him until it’s gone.  
  
  
*****  
  
  
Eddie wakes up and stares up at the ceiling, for a moment not sure where he is. He shifts, rolls over lazily, and almost falls off the couch before he catches himself. He groans and sits up. He has that foggy sense that he had been dreaming, but he can’t remember what he was dreaming.  
  
He looks around. The last thing he remembers, Anne and Dan were here. He tries to remember the rest. They were practically interrogating him, trying to get him to say that Venom was evil or something, but he doesn’t know what happened after that. Slowly, he stands up. His gut feels weird, almost stretched and somehow wrong, but he imagines it must have been something he ate earlier. He looks around his apartment some, but doesn’t see anybody. Had he just fallen asleep in the middle of their visit?  
  
It’s when he walks by the couch again that he notices the blood stain on it. Eddie swears, and his hand goes to his back. Had he torn out some of his stitches somehow? It seems like a lot of blood for that, but maybe he had torn one of the cuts open too? His back doesn’t feel wet, and none of the cuts on his lower back hurt any more than usual, but he doesn’t know where else the blood would have come from. He heads to his bathroom, intending to look at the cuts in the mirror just to be sure.  
  
His bathroom door is closed, and he doesn’t usually leave it like that, but he’s got other things on his mind as he pushes the door open. He stops in surprise. On the edge of the tub, both Anne and Dan sit huddled together, Anne staring hollowly at the floor, Dan taking deep breaths with his eyes closed. They both look up at once.  
  
“The hell? Shit, sorry.” Eddie quickly turns out and closes the door again. He doesn’t know why they’re _both_ in his bathroom, but he guesses that explains the missing piece in his memory. They must have gone in there and he fell asleep for a minute.  
  
The door opens behind him before he’s even back to his living room, and he stops and turns around again as he hears Anne say his name, her tone an odd mix of hesitance and perhaps desperation. She sounds like she’s been crying.  
  
Eddie looks at her face for a minute, bewildered by the hollow look of it, not quite sure how to read it. “What happened?” He asks, growing increasingly concerned.  
  
Anne’s face drops. “What do you mean ‘what happened?’”  
  
Dan emerges behind Anne, his expression echoing hers. Eddie stutters for a moment, now concerned and confused.  
  
“I mean… Why are you both in my bathroom?”  
  
“We hid there when it finally let us go,” she answers, and her brows slowly rise at Eddie’s clueless look. She turns and looks back at Dan. Dan’s face crumples with concern.  
  
“Eddie,” he says carefully. “What do you remember?”  
  
“I don’t know,” Eddie mumbles, scratching at the back of his head as a feeling of nervousness bubbles up in his stomach. “I guess I passed out for a minute there.”  
  
“Before that?” Dan presses.  
  
“We were talking?”  
  
“And you don’t remember anything else?”  
  
“No,” Eddie forces out, his nervousness turning to frustration. What are they trying to do now?  
  
The other two look at each other in concern again, and inside, Eddie growls. He doesn’t appreciate this. They’re playing some game, trying to fuck with him.  
  
“Look,” he says, not wanting to be part of this argument again. “I think my back is bleeding. Can I just get in there for a sec?” He points to the bathroom.  
  
Another look between Anne and Dan, but they both step out of his way, and he goes in. He steps in front of the mirror and turns around as he pulls up his shirt a little. He frowns, looking over his shoulder. No blood, and it looks like all the stitches are still in place. He was pretty damn sure there hadn’t been a bloodstain on his couch before.  
  
“It wasn’t your back, Eddie,” Dan says carefully, standing at the threshold of the bathroom, but still keeping his distance.  
  
Eddie’s frown deepens. He checks his arms, feels his shoulder, pats down his chest and stomach. No injuries apparent.   
  
“It was the creature,” Dan continues. “It just…” He hesitates. “It just raped you…”  
  
Eddie stares in shock for a moment. “Pretty sure I’d remember that.”  
  
“I think you may have repressed it,” Dan starts to explain.  
  
“Think I what?” Eddie doesn’t wait for an answer. “Dan, _I would know_.”  
  
“It forced us to watch, Eddie.” Anne steps up beside Dan, and Eddie suddenly feels a little cornered. A shiver runs down his spine, but he still doesn’t believe this.  
  
There’s another shared look of concern between Anne and Dan, and now Eddie’s getting _really_ annoyed by it. “You think making shit like this up is going to get me to ‘admit’ to something? Why would I hide anything? Venom has changed, and I don’t understand why you can’t just accept that. Could you at least be a little happy for me?”  
  
They both look shocked, and Eddie pushes past them out of the bathroom.   
  
“It has not changed!” Anne snaps as she follows him into the living room. “It just hurt you _very_ badly and we both saw it with our own eyes!”  
  
Eddie turns on her. “It wouldn’t do that, and you need to get out.” He points to the front door.  
  
“Why?” Anne is yelling to match Eddie’s volume. “So you can go back to your happy little life where nothing is wrong and that alien isn’t brutally fucking you? You can’t live like that!”  
  
Eddie shrinks back a little.  
  
“Eddie,” Dan tries a little more calmly. “There’s no way it didn’t tear your sphincter when it did that to you. It did something after that, I don’t know what, maybe took the pain away or something, but I believe there will be evidence of what it did.”  
  
Eddie raises his brows at Dan. “I’m not letting you look at my ass. Get out.”  
  
“No,” Anne grits out. “Not until you get it through your thick head that this thing is not suddenly playing nice.”  
  
“Anne,” Dan says quietly. “Let’s just leave him alone for now.”  
  
“No,” Anne says incredulously.  
  
“I need to talk to you,” he continues.  
  
Anne looks at Dan long and hard, then turns, glares at Eddie for a moment, then turns sharply again and strides toward the door. Dan gives Eddie a sad, apologetic look, and follows her. When the door closes behind them, Eddie stomps toward it, locks it, then turns his back to it and leans back against it. He feels suddenly tired. He lowers his head into his hands. What is going on? Who does he trust? He’s not sure he knows anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m sorry this took forever. I’ve been getting burned out lately. I can’t guarantee there will be more porn after this, I might just conclude it soon because I’m afraid I might not be able to continue it, and I couldn’t live with leaving it unfinished. Let me know if there’s anything specific you’re dying to see first, though. I don’t know if I will be able to fit it in, but maybe something will inspire me. :)


	17. Chapter 17

It’s hours later before he finally gets the guts to ask Venom.  
  
“What did you do to me?” His voice is uneven, fearful. He doesn’t really trust what Anne and Dan were saying, but at the same time, it was hard not to notice how truly shaken they looked. And where had the blood come from? There are too many unanswered questions here.  
  
 **Nothing,** Venom replies easily in his head. **They don’t want you to trust me.**  
  
Eddie swallows. He wants to trust Venom, but he’s so confused.  
  
“Where did the blood come from?”  
  
 **You cut your hand. I healed it.**  
  
“Why don’t I remember anything?”  
  
 **There is something wrong with your mind. I don’t know how to fix it.**  
  
Eddie falls silent. What could be so wrong with him that he’s just forgetting entire chunks of time?  
  
“…Am I going to be okay?” It feels like everything is falling apart again.  
  
 **We will get through this,** Venom says. **Together.**  
  
  
*****  
  
  
Late the following day, Anne calls him. He almost doesn’t answer it, still confused about who to trust and not wanting to get into another fight with her about Venom’s intentions, but at the last moment, he picks up.  
  
“Annie?” His voice sounds quiet and almost weak to him, and he clears his throat subtly.  
  
“Hi, Eddie.” She sounds hesitant.  
  
“What’s going on?”  
  
“I’m… I’m sorry about yesterday. We didn’t mean to push you like that.”  
  
Eddie’s pretty sure pushing him is exactly what they had come here to do, but he accepts the apology. “It’s okay…”   
  
“Things just… haven’t really been matching up, and we’re worried about you.” She’s picking her words very carefully, and Eddie still feels unsure about all of this.  
  
Eddie doesn’t have an answer for her.  
  
Anne continues hesitantly. “Could you come to the hospital?”  
  
“Why?”  
  
“Dan and I would feel a lot better if he could check you over. You know, make sure everything’s okay.”  
  
“I’m fine,” he protests, though secretly, he’s not so sure about that anymore. But still, he doesn’t see how it’s their business.  
  
“Eddie… You’re not,” she says sadly.  
  
“What do _you_ know?” Eddie snarls. She’s pushing again, and he doesn’t want to hear this.  
  
“I know that you’re completely blocking out the things it’s doing to you,” she responds forcefully, the frustration in her voice barely contained.   
  
Eddie hangs up. His heartbeat pounds in his ears. He knows he’s forgotten at least one chunk of time, but he doesn’t know who to trust, and he’s less inclined to trust Anne when she acts that way. He knows Anne doesn’t like Venom after she saw what it used to do to him. She has the motive to try to get him to turn against Venom. It did hurt him in the beginning, he won’t deny that, but they’re past that now. He knows Venom won’t hurt him anymore, and all he really wants is to be able to trust the creature that’s sharing his body.  
  
Anne calls back a minute later, and Eddie doesn’t answer. Dan tries after that, and Eddie doesn’t answer that either. He doesn’t want to talk to them. He’s got two sides telling him conflicting things, but at least Venom’s not trying to start a fight over it like they seem to be.  
  
He stuffs his phone in his pocket and moves over to the table where his laptop sits. He has an article to finish.  
  
Eddie realizes that evening that he’s basically out of food, and if he still wants to avoid Venom having to eat people to stay alive, it would be prudent to stock up again. He puts on a light jacket, digs around until he finds where he left his wallet, and heads out.  
  
  
*****  
  
  
Dan tries calling him again the next day, and he stares down at his phone as it rings, but he doesn’t intend to answer. He’s made up his mind. Those two need to back off and stop trying to fuck with his mind.  
  
When Anne tries a little later, he puts his phone on his counter with a sigh and leaves it.  
  
They keep trying over the next couple days, and Eddie continues to ignore their calls.  
  
 **You trust me,** Venom says on the third day of Eddie not answering their calls, as his phone rings again, and he sets it aside after glancing at the caller ID.  
  
“I can see why they would lie,” Eddie answers. “But I don’t see why you would.” He’s never known Venom to be ashamed of what it does. If it _were_ hurting him, it wouldn’t hide it.  
  
Venom makes a pleased sound. Eddie goes back to typing.   
  
**Want you, Eddie.**  
  
“Hmm?” Eddie peels his eyes away from his computer screen.  
  
 **Get up.**  
  
It doesn’t wait for him to comply, but takes control of his muscles and stands him up. Eddie can’t help but feel nervous, even though he knows whatever Venom is going to do, it won’t hurt him.  
  
 **Let’s have a shower,** it says, releasing his muscles.  
  
Eddie hesitates, but then heads slowly to his bathroom, and shuts the door carefully behind him. He strips equally slowly, and his breath feels a little tight in his chest as he steps into the tub and pulls the shower curtain closed. He remembers when Venom fucked him in here before. He doesn’t really want to be fucked again, but he tries to be brave.  
  
He turns on the water, adjusts the temperature to a nice hot setting, and stands under the flow, waiting.  
  
Gradually, Venom emerges from his body, and he watches it build itself up into its full body form in front of him, still connected to him via tendrils between their bodies. He stares, intimidated but oddly fascinated.  
  
Something bumps his stomach, and he looks down. He reflexively twitches backward at the sight of Venom’s cock, slowly hardening and rising. Eddie stares, paralyzed.  
  
 **“Suck.”** Venom puts its hands on his shoulders and pushes down, and Eddie obediently lowers himself to his knees in front of Venom. Venom’s grin widens.  
  
With the cock in his face, Eddie’s sure it’s smaller than last time. He remembers the sight of it before Venom had put it inside him that night it tore his back open, the last time it was actually cruel to him. He’s sure he wouldn’t have been able to fit it in his mouth then, but looking at it now, he thinks he can. It’s big, but it’s possible.  
  
He grips the base of the cock as he swallows nervously. He looks up at Venom above him. Its back is blocking the water from hitting him, and he watches streams run down its body. After a minute he finds himself looking at the cock in front of him again. He tilts it down toward him and puts his mouth on it hesitantly. He doesn’t want this, but it’s better than being fucked until he passes out from the pain.  
  
He spreads his lips around it, opening his jaw wide to fit it in his mouth. He rests his hands on Venom’s hips, and slowly takes it in deeper.  
  
He pulls back, then moves forward again, taking it in as far as he can without choking. He doesn’t think it’ll fit down his throat anyway. He slowly bobs his head forward and back, trying to stimulate Venom, though he’s not sure if it actually has erogenous zones, seeing as it’s just an amorphous blob by itself. He always assumed the humanoid form was something it did just because it was inhabiting a human body. It hadn’t been able to maintain the shape when it was ripped away from him in Drake’s lab.  
  
Venom lets him lick and suck and bob his head for a couple minutes. When Eddie rolls his eyes upward to look at Venom’s face, he sees a look of satisfaction. Eddie pulls off slowly, licks down Venom’s entire length, and toys with the base of its cock for a moment. Venom makes a pleased sound. He licks back up, and runs his tongue around the head before he takes it back in.  
  
 **“All the way.”** Its hand comes to rest on the back of his head, and pushes him toward it slowly. Eddie gags as it reaches the back of his throat, but Venom keeps pushing until it pushes down his throat. He jerks, his eyes squeezed shut, his hands pushing against Venom’s hips. It feels too big, though it’s not tremendously painful. Still, he can clearly feel his throat bulge around it.  
  
Venom pulls out, gives Eddie time for one breath, then pushes him forward again and slides down his throat. It holds him there for a moment as Eddie chokes around it. Eddie’s face is pressed up against its groin, his eyes still squeezed shut.  
  
Finally it releases him and Eddie pulls all the way off, falling down to sit on his heels as he gasps for breath. When he looks back up, his blood turns cold. The cock in front of his face slowly grows, until it’s the size it was that day it fucked him with it.  
  
Venom crouches down to look in his face, and Eddie closes his eyes and turns his face away as the water hits him. Venom grips his upper arms and pushes him back, guiding him down into the tub until he’s lying mostly on his back, half propped up by the tub.  
  
With his face out of the stream, he opens his eyes again, and looks at Venom fearfully. It’s going to fuck him with that cock, and it’s going to tear him again. Maybe it’ll heal him afterward, but he doesn’t want to feel that much pain ever again. He thought this wasn’t going to happen. He thought Venom had gotten better.  
  
“No, please,” he begs weakly as Venom pushes his knees up to his chest and starts to line itself up. “Please, it hurts me…”  
  
 **“It won’t hurt this time, Eddie. I promise.”**  
  
Its predatory grin, however, is not encouraging.  
  
Eddie looks down at the size of it as Venom presses against his hole, and he’s sure that’s not true. It’ll tear him for sure. He whimpers and closes his eyes.  
  
Venom pushes forward slowly, and there is the pain of being penetrated, the pain of his muscle stretching when it’s not ready to, but it’s not as bad as it always was before, and Eddie opens his eyes again. He watches it slide into him as he stretches easily around it. No excruciating pain, no tear, just the more tolerable pain of the stretch as it moves into him.  
  
He watches his stomach bulge grotesquely, feeling his insides move to accommodate the huge intrusion, and he tilts his head back against the edge of the tub behind him and closes his eyes, trying to keep breathing.  
  
This isn’t so bad, he tells himself. He doesn’t want it, wishes Venom would realize his discomfort and pull out and leave him alone, but at least it’s not as bad as it has been. He tries to assure himself that he can deal with this, that it could be so, so much worse, and he’s glad that it isn’t.   
  
Venom can and has healed him, and Eddie thinks it would probably protect him against any danger at this point. It needs him, and in return is willing to help him when he needs it. If being fucked is part of that deal, Eddie will just have to learn to live with it.  
  
Venom pulls back and the pressure in his stomach lessens enough to let him take a deep breath before Venom pushes forward again, filling him with its cock.  
  
It starts thrusting slowly, pulling back almost all the way out of him before pushing in again with a roll of its hips. Eddie feels like it’s filling him to his limit, but when he dares to look down, he sees Venom is only pushing half way into him.  
  
 **“You like my cock inside you?”**  
  
Eddie squeezes his eyes shut and shakes his head. He doesn’t like anything about this, is just trying to put up with it, for the sake of maintaining his relationship with Venom.  
  
 **“Yeah you do,”** Venom states. **“All the pleasure I’ve given you, all those orgasms… You should be grateful.”**  
  
Eddie whimpers a little.  
  
 **“Tell me you want it deeper.”**  
  
Eddie looks at its face fearfully, and shakes his head again weakly.  
  
 **“Say it,”** it insists, its eyes narrowing at him but its ever-present grin unchanging.  
  
Eddie doesn’t see that he has much of a choice in any of this. He swallows as he looks up at the creature above him. He just has to keep it happy. This isn’t that bad, he tells himself again. He’s been through worse.  
  
“I want it deeper,” he says weakly. He’s reluctant to say it, but he tries to make it sound as convincing as he can.  
  
Venom laughs quietly, and on its next push into him, it slides the full length of its cock into his hole. Eddie’s insides rearrange a little more, and he groans as he feels the cock press on his diaphragm, pushing air out of his lungs. He’s surprised the whole thing can actually fit. His stomach stretches uncomfortably over it.  
  
His hands grip the edges of the tub beside him to steady himself as it starts going a little faster, now going balls-deep with every thrust. Eddie feels sick.  
  
It’s just as he thinks he’s starting to get used to it that Venom speaks again.  
  
 **“Harder?”**  
  
Eddie definitely doesn’t want it harder, but when he glances up at its face again, it has the same expectant look as last time. He swallows, takes a breath when it pulls back. He knows what it wants, and knows if he gives it what it wants, chances are this will be over with faster. “Yes. Please, fuck me harder.” His voice is a little raspy, and he feels a little sick for what he just said.  
  
Venom’s grin widens, and it snaps its hips forward, making Eddie cry out at the sudden motion. It pulls back and forces itself hard into him again.  
  
Its speed and intensity picks up more and more until it is slamming into him fast and hard, and Eddie is disturbed by the feeling, but can’t help but look down as his stomach bulges around the cock with each sharp thrust.   
  
When Venom releases Eddie’s legs and braces its hands against the edges of the tub in order to pound into him yet harder, Eddie’s legs slide around Venom’s waist, and for a brief moment, the feeling of water cascading down on his feet pulls him away from the relentless fucking, but not for nearly as long as he would like.  
  
He feels helpless and paralyzed and so small beneath Venom. He feels invaded and used. He tries to tell himself that he shouldn’t feel this way, that Venom’s not mistreating him, that this is better than it ever was. But he can’t convince himself of that right now. He can’t wash away the feelings, and he can’t wash away the fact that he doesn’t want this. He hates it.  
  
He lets out a cry as it starts to get more painful, the rough treatment slamming his spine into the lip of the tub, his ass stinging from the slap of Venom’s hips against it.  
  
“Please,” he begs between heaving breaths. “Please, not so rough. I- I can’t take this.”  
  
 **“You can take it, Eddie,”** Venom practically purrs. **“We’ll be done soon, don’t worry.”**  
  
Eddie squeezes his eyes shut and groans as the pounding continues. He shakes his head, “no… Please, stop.”  
  
Venom’s hand is suddenly at his face, its two middle fingers probing past his lips. Eddie lets it happen, relaxing his mouth to allow them in. They slide over his tongue, and the claws scrape, but don’t puncture.  
  
Venom pulls his jaw open wider, and presses down on his tongue, its fingers sliding even farther in until they’re nearly at the back of his throat, and Eddie can only barely stop himself from gagging. He moans around them as Venom continues fucking him mercilessly.  
  
With everything the cock is doing to his insides, Eddie doesn’t really feel the small tendril inside him snaking down toward his groin, but he jerks, his eyes opening wide as it wraps itself around his prostate. He remembers it doing this before. Stimulation to his prostate through his ass is one thing, but when it touches it directly…  
  
Eddie’s nerves fire off in sudden pleasure as it squeezes slightly, and he cries out around Venom’s fingers. The tendril rubs up and down, then squeezes the gland again, and Eddie’s vision goes white as he suddenly cums hard.  
  
His legs tighten around Venom’s waist, his toes curl, and his hands tighten where they’re gripping the tub as the orgasm slams into him and drowns out everything else. He screams with the intensity of it. Venom pushes in deep and its eyes slip closed as Eddie arches below it as the pleasure rushes through both of them.  
  
When the orgasm fades and Eddie regains his ability to see straight, Venom is still inside him, still looming over him. He moans weakly as it finally releases his jaw and pulls its fingers out of his mouth. Its fingers move down and trail through the cum on Eddie’s stomach as Eddie pants tiredly, or at least as much as he can with the huge cock still stuffed inside him. Venom puts its fingers back in his mouth, and Eddie hates the taste of his own cum, but closes his eyes and doesn’t fight it.  
  
Venom doesn’t pull out of him, doesn’t even remove its fingers from his mouth again, but starts melting into him, seeping back into his body through its connections to him. Some of it crawls its way into his mouth and slides down his throat before it sinks completely into him, disappearing into his cells, or wherever it is when it has integrated itself into his body.  
  
With his gut no longer stuffed full of cock, Eddie pants to the full extent he can, his lungs heaving as he lies in the bottom of his tub, his body feeling used and weak.  
  
That was not a pleasant experience, and not one he’s looking forward to ever repeating, though he has a strong feeling this won’t be the last time it’ll happen. If this is what Venom wants to do with him while it is inhabiting his body, then it’s just something he’s going to have to learn to live with. He feels a little nauseous at the idea of getting used to being fucked like that, but what can he do?  
  
He reminds himself that Venom has been worse in the past, that he’s grateful to not be receiving that kind of treatment. Venom is still being nice. Its actions are much more kind to him than it was when they first bonded, and Eddie is glad about that.   
  
He can put up with this. It’s okay. Things will be fine. Still, deep down, Eddie feels helpless and kind of wants to cry.  
  
He knows his body is going to be aching later, and for now, he can’t seem to find the energy to stand up. He lies unmoving in his tub and lets the hot water cascade down on him.


	18. Chapter 18

That evening, Eddie gets not a call, but a text from Dan.  
  
 _I need to take your sutures out. Leaving them in too long can cause adverse effects._  
  
Eddie reads it and sighs.   
  
_Okay_ , he replies.  
  
The response comes back quickly. _When can I come do it?_  
  
Eddie still feels exhausted, and doesn’t feel like dealing with anything for the rest of the day. _Tomorrow morning_ , he taps in.  
  
 _Great. I’ll be there at 9._  
  
Eddie glances at the message, and stuffs his phone back in his pocket. He leans back against his couch and closes his eyes.   
  
He wakes up to the sound of knocking on his door, and he looks around, disoriented. The sun is shining through his windows brightly. Did he sleep all night on his couch? He _was_ pretty tired.  
  
He groans as he sits up. Sleeping like that definitely put his back and neck out of whack. As he stands up, he cuts off a second groan. The soreness from yesterday has also definitely set in, and his whole body hurts.  
  
He shuffles his way to the door and opens it. Must be 9 already. Dan stands in the hallway, and Eddie watches his face immediately crumple with concern.  
  
“Are you okay?”  
  
“Yeah, fine,” Eddie answers quickly. “Just fell asleep on the couch last night, didn’t do great things for my back.” He forces his back a little straighter and feels it pop a few times. “Come on in.”  
  
Eddie shuffles back toward his couch as Dan steps in and shuts the door behind him.  
  
“Should I lie down for this?”  
  
“Yeah,” Dan answers. “That would be easiest.”  
  
Eddie slowly, painfully strips off his shirt. Even his arms hurt from how hard he was bracing himself against the tub. Still, soreness will go away soon, and he’ll gladly take that over being torn or cut open.  
  
As he lies down on his couch, he wonders if Dan’s going to push the issue of whatever he and Anne think Venom’s been doing. He’s still inclined to trust Venom’s side of things. They said it had raped him last time they were over here, and that Eddie had suppressed the memories. But if he suppressed memories of Venom fucking him that time, why didn’t he suppress the memories of yesterday? He still remembers it perfectly clearly. It doesn’t line up.  
  
Eddie’s pretty sure he’s just losing random memories because of some other cause. If it were about Venom, he should have forgotten yesterday too. It’s not Venom’s fault, there’s just something wrong with Eddie, like it said.  
  
He settles onto the couch and tries to relax as Dan pulls over his coffee table and sits beside him. He has the backpack again, and he pulls out a pair of gloves, then a metal dish and a small pair of scissors and forceps. He leans over Eddie, but pauses before he even starts.  
  
“You’ve got some bruising starting here.” He touches Eddie’s upper back gently, where it had been repeatedly slammed into the edge of the tub.  
  
Eddie stops himself from groaning. Dan’s still looking for some proof that Venom is mistreating him. “Yeah, I slipped and fell back onto the tub,” he lies.  
  
Dan doesn’t respond, but starts cutting the stitches one by one, pulling them gently out of Eddie’s skin. “I’d really like it if you could come to the hospital for a checkup,” he finally says hesitantly, and Eddie has to hold himself back from sighing. This again.  
  
“I don’t see why.”  
  
Dan hesitates. “Look, I’m not going to try to change your mind about anything, okay? I just want to make sure you’re alright.”  
  
“Well, I can tell you,” Eddie responds. “I’m alright.”  
  
“You might not be able to feel it,” Dan continues, dropping each cut stitch into the bowl by Eddie’s head, “but there could be other effects going on inside your body. We don’t know if it’s disrupting your body chemistry, or possibly causing gradual internal damage.”  
  
Eddie’s quiet. That’s a fair reason, he’ll admit, but he’s still not sure that Dan doesn’t have ulterior motives.  
  
“There’s also…” Dan seems hesitant to broach the subject. “There’s the issue of your memory. Have you noticed any other times you’ve forgotten?”  
  
“No,” Eddie responds. “Just the one time.”  
  
“Well,” Dan says, “if there’s a biochemical reason for it, I might be able to detect and treat it so it doesn’t happen any more in the future.”  
  
Eddie ponders that for a minute. Venom had said that there was something wrong with him, something that it wasn’t able to fix. Maybe going to the hospital wouldn’t be such a bad idea.  
  
“What do you think, man?” He speaks quietly, mentally directing his question to Venom. Dan makes a questioning noise, his motions on Eddie’s back stopping. “Not talking to you,” Eddie says more loudly to Dan, and Dan pulls his hands away from Eddie entirely, probably afraid that Venom might come out.  
  
 **What does he want to do?** Venom sounds a little suspicious.  
  
Eddie relays the question to Dan. “What kind of tests are you going to do?”  
  
“Just a general physical, make sure everything looks good, and then I’d like to do a full panel blood test. That’ll help me see general organ function, hormone levels, that kind of thing. Depending on how things go, maybe a quick scan just to see how you’re looking inside.”  
  
Eddie waits for Venom to answer.  
  
 **He can look,** Venom says, its voice now more confident. **He can’t do anything to hurt me.**  
  
Eddie nods, but he has some concerns of his own. “You’re not going to use any of that to like, show other people that I have a symbiote, are you?” He still doesn’t know if Venom can be detected with any of those tests, but he doesn’t want to take the risk. He can live with Venom himself, but if people other than Anne and Dan knew he had an alien in him, he knows his life would not be easy.  
  
“I promise, I’ll be the only one to see any of the results.” Dan still has his hands held away from Eddie, his body scooted back away from him a bit as well.  
  
“Okay,” Eddie says with a sigh. “I’ll go.” He kind of suspects this is only half about him, and half that they want to try to learn more about Venom, maybe to find some way they can hurt it, but Venom is confident they can’t do anything against it, so he’ll trust it.  
  
“Thank you,” Dan says, sounding incredibly relieved. He scoots slowly forward again, and resumes cutting the stitches from Eddie’s back one by one. “Just let me know when you can come, and I can get everything set aside for you.”  
  
“Whenever,” Eddie says carelessly. He’s mostly doing this to humor them. He’s a little curious about his memory issues, but otherwise expects they’re not going to find anything wrong with the rest of his body. And maybe, when they find him in good health, they’ll finally leave him alone.  
  
“This afternoon? My schedule’s pretty open after 2.”  
  
“Yeah, okay,” Eddie answers. “We’ll be there.”  
  
  
*****  
  
  
Having the stitches out of his back almost feels weird after all this time. The feel of his shirt sliding smoothly across his skin instead of barely touching him and catching on the little ends of the sutures is strangely distracting. But still, it’s nice to be rid of them. He stands in front of his mirror after Dan has left, looking over his shoulder at the long scars down his back. He doesn’t really think about how Venom was the one who had done that to him, or about the fact that Venom had never offered to heal it later. He’s just glad to be rid of the stitches.  
  
That afternoon, Eddie gets himself to the hospital. Venom is quiet in his head, but he’s been starting to get a better sense about it lately. It seems to be watching everything with sharp attention.  
  
Eddie walks up to the receptionist at the first desk he finds in the hospital. It’s a big building, and Dan hadn’t given him much in the way of instructions.   
  
“I think I have an appointment?” He asks, and the woman behind the desk glances at him before looking back at her screen.  
  
“What department?”  
  
“I… I don’t know.”  
  
“Name?”  
  
“Uh. Eddie Brock.” He glances down self-consciously, suddenly concerned that he may have put on the hoodie that makes him look like a homeless man. He finds his jacket clean and relatively presentable, and looks back up at the person behind the desk. Her eyes are fixated on her screen.  
  
“And who’s your appointment with?”  
  
“Dan, er, Dr. Lewis?”  
  
She stares at her screen another moment, and he hears the mouse click several times. “I’m not seeing anyth-“  
  
“Eddie!”  
  
Eddie glances up to see Anne heading toward him down the hallway, her hand raised to catch his attention.  
  
“Oh, um. I think she can help me. Thanks.” He turns quickly away from the desk and walks toward Anne as she stops and waits for him.  
  
“It’s good to see you out, Eddie,” she says conversationally, though he can see a hint of nervousness in her eyes. It’s clear she still doesn’t trust Venom.  
  
“Yeah,” Eddie agrees lamely. Her nervousness makes him aware of his own. “What are you doing here?” Last time he checked, she didn’t work at the hospital.  
  
“Dan said you were coming, and I wanted to make sure you’re okay.”  
  
“I _am_ okay,” he mutters under his breath.  
  
She leads him upstairs, where they find Dan.  
  
“Hey, Eddie,” Dan gives him a friendly smile, though Eddie can sense he’s nervous too, and it only puts him more on edge. “Right in here.” Dan leads him a short way down the hallway, and motions toward a door. He opens it for Eddie, and Eddie glances inside to see a fairly nondescript exam room. “If you want to just get into that gown there, I’ll be back in just a minute.” He leaves Eddie alone in the room, and Eddie nods quietly to himself, trying to assure himself that this is all going to be okay.  
  
He takes off everything but his briefs, puts on the hospital gown, and sits awkwardly on the exam table until Dan comes back. Anne isn’t with him, and Eddie’s not sure if that makes it better or worse. Not that he wants her sitting there and watching while Dan goes through whatever exams he wants to do, but Eddie does generally feel more comfortable with her around.  
  
Dan sets down a patient file and a little stand holding several empty vials.  
  
“Let’s start with a general checkup, and then I’ll take some blood after that for the blood panel.”   
  
Dan puts on a pair of exam gloves, and starts on the checkup, doing everything from checking Eddie’s ears, eyes, throat, heartbeat, temperature, and blood pressure, to testing his reflexes, feeling his lymph nodes and gently feeling his body for abnormalities. Eddie refuses anything that would involve removing his briefs, and Dan backs down easily.  
  
“That’s okay, Eddie, I’m not going to do anything you don’t want me to.”  
  
Eddie relaxes a little.  
  
Dan does manage to find nearly every sore muscle in Eddie’s body, and Eddie tries not to react to the pain, but doesn’t always succeed.  
  
“Does this hurt?” Dan asks in concern, watching Eddie’s face as he gently palpates his stomach.  
  
“It’s fine,” Eddie says quickly. “I’m just sore from sleeping funny.”  
  
Dan doesn’t look convinced, and it looks like he wants to ask more about it, but he holds his tongue.  
  
When he’s done looking him over, he draws some blood, filling each of the numerous vials he had brought in with him before he carefully wraps Eddie’s arm.  
  
“Now, I’d just like to do a quick full-body scan, if that’s okay. It’ll help me see if there’s any internal damage.”  
  
“Venom would know if something were wrong,” Eddie offers weakly. “It would tell me.”  
  
“Humor me?” Dan looks a little sad, but he forces a hopeful smile.  
  
Eddie lets out a quiet sigh. He’s already getting tired of being poked and prodded, but if this is the last of it, he supposes he can put up with it. “Okay.” He just hopes Dan isn’t going to find all his organs out of place or something from when Venom fucked him yesterday.  
  
Dan gives him some hospital slippers and shuffles him out of the room, still in the gown. Anne is sitting in a chair in the hall outside, and stands up when she sees them.  
  
“How’s everything looking?”  
  
Eddie doesn’t really know, and shrugs slightly.  
  
“Everything looked okay for the exam. The blood tests should tell us a lot, and we’re just heading over to the MRI now.”  
  
The MRI room has calming music playing inside, and a wall nearly entirely made up of a massive screen showing an animated lake, ripples running slowly across it. Eddie marvels at how much money this hospital must have, to put something like this in.  
  
“Just lie down here,” Dan pats the small bed platform of the machine, and Eddie sits slowly down on it before turning himself and lying down, adjusting a bit until he’s comfortable. He glances over at Anne, standing back in the first half of the room with the desk and computers. Her arms are crossed, and she looks serious, but offers him a little smile when she sees him looking her way.  
  
“This will be completely painless,” Dan tells him as he presses a button and Eddie starts to slide into the MRI. “Just try to lie still and relax.”  
  
Eddie nods, and Dan turns back to the other half of the room. He closes a glass partition door behind him, sits down at one of the computers, and Eddie hears his voice through a speaker in his half of the room. “Here we go.”  
  
Eddie closes his eyes, wondering how long this will take and whether he should maybe just go to sleep for it. He hears the machine start up around him.  
  
Pain suddenly surges through his body, and he convulses, everything shaking. He cries out as he hears Venom do the same within his head, and his hands scrabble at the inside of the tube around him. he feels bits of Venom emerging from this body in quick flashes before disappearing inside him again, and it feels like an eternity of the agonizing pain before the machine goes quiet and the pain fades. Eddie moans, his head spinning, his breath almost painful. Dan is quickly pulling the platform out, and Eddie starts to sit up shakily.  
  
“Whoa, whoa. What happened? Are you okay?” Dan is looking him over fearfully, and Anne runs up as well, looking equally concerned.  
  
 **You have to get out of here, Eddie. That sound frequency hurts me.**  
  
Eddie squeezes his eyes shut for a moment, and shakes his head faintly. “Ohh,” he says, feeling a little nauseous. “Don’t do that again,” he slurs. “It’s really harmful to Venom.”  
  
Anne looks at Dan for a brief moment. “Turn it back on,” she says in a low voice.  
  
“W-what?” Eddie stutters.  
  
“What?” Dan echoes. “Anne, it just-”  
  
But Anne is already running back into the other room, and Eddie tries to scramble up after her. “No!” Eddie cries out in desperation as he hears Venom growl in his head and move to emerge from his body. But with one click of the mouse, the machine starts up again, and Eddie screams.   
  
He tries to continue forward, but only succeeds in crashing into Dan. He falls to the floor and plants both hands over his ears, his body convulsing again with the pain.  
  
He’s barely aware of Dan’s hands on him, trying to steady him, and then they’re gone as Dan runs back into the other room. He just barely hears him yell something, but he can’t make out what he’s saying.  
  
Eddie continues to writhe on the floor, and inside him, Venom screams and writhes as well. Eddie feels sick beneath the pain. It feels like Venom is pushing his organs around as it thrashes inside of him. After a minute he feels it surfacing, collecting near his chest and stomach, and then a moment after that, it tears out of him, shooting across the room, and Eddie is flung back and hits the base of the machine behind him.  
  
The pain is suddenly gone, even though the sound continues, but it takes a moment for Eddie to recover enough to push himself up. He stares ahead of him at Venom, now simply a black mass writhing and shaking on the floor, extensions of it stretching out before snapping back into the main body of it. He crawls rapidly toward it, tries to steady it with his hands. He knows how much pain it’s in, and can still hear the echoes of its screams in his head, though he knows that outside of his head, it’s completely silent.   
  
He doesn’t know what to do.  
  
He looks up, sees that Anne has closed the glass doors again, and both she and Dan are watching with wide eyes. Eddie scrambles up and to the door. He flings it open, even as Anne tries to keep it closed, and he tries to get to the computer. He has to stop the machine.  
  
Dan quickly gets in front of him and pushes him back. Eddie’s a little stronger, but Anne gets behind him, grips his upper arm, and pulls with all her strength.  
  
“No!” Eddie yells. “You’re going to kill it!”  
  
“Let it die!” She shouts back. “This is for your own good, Eddie.”  
  
But it doesn’t deserve to die. It changed, it became so much better. It deserves a chance. They were in this together.  
  
Eddie’s still making slow progress toward the computer. He yanks on his arm as he gets close, throws Anne off, and then desperately shoves Dan to the side. He rushes the rest of the way to the computer, but his mind is in a panic, and he can’t figure out how to turn it off. He glances fearfully over the screen at where Venom is on the floor. It’s completely still now, nearly flat against the floor. His heart jumps into this throat.  
  
He clicks wildly on the screen, pushing buttons until the sound finally stops, then he rushes through the door again and drops to his knees beside the black mass on the floor.  
  
Motionless. Dead. A blackish liquid slowly spreads across the floor from it. Eddie stares.  
  
Anne approaches behind him, crouches down and puts her hands on his shoulders. “Eddie,” she says quietly. Eddie doesn’t respond. He feels numb. They killed it.  
  
“Eddie,” she tries again. “It needed to happen. That thing was hurting you.”  
  
Eddie barely hears, and he reaches slowly toward Venom, but Dan snatches his hand and pulls it away. Eddie looks sharply up at him.  
  
Dan grips his upper arm and pulls him up. Eddie stumbles to his feet, but his eyes move back to the floor. He’s in shock. He never expected this to happen. How could something so powerful be stopped by a little sound? It said they couldn’t hurt it.  
  
He stares in silence. He doesn’t know what to do.


	19. Chapter 19

Eddie vaguely remembers being led back to the exam room. He sort of remembers them trying to talk to him, trying to get him to understand why they did what they did. He thinks he remembers them giving him his regular clothes back, and he doesn’t really remember changing back into them, but he remembers hearing their voices outside the door, arguing faintly about something or other. He doesn’t really remember much else.  
  
Eddie opens his eyes slowly. His body is relaxed, and though he’s not entirely sure where he is, the pattern on the wall in front of him feels comfortably familiar. He stares lazily at it for a minute before he realizes: this is his old apartment. The one he shared with Anne. Or maybe the one he still shares with Anne? Had everything been one very long, bad dream?  
  
He looks around briefly, then rolls over, half expecting to find Anne next to him.  
  
But she’s not.  
  
This is the guest room, he realizes. He sits up. His head aches, and he groans. Why is he here?  
  
As he gets up, he realizes he’s in PJs that are a little too long for him. He hikes the trousers up a bit, and shuffles to the door.  
  
It’s bright outside, and he squints painfully as he pokes his head out. As his eyes adjust a bit, he sees Anne and Dan sitting at the table by the window, and his heart drops, mostly at the sight of Dan. So it wasn’t a dream. Or at least not the part about Anne dumping him. But why is he here?  
  
They both turn and look up at him, and he stands frozen, blinking in confusion. “Where… I mean. Why-” Eddie squints again and rubs at one eye with his palm. He’s not exactly sure what he means to ask.  
  
“Hey,” Anne says, standing up from her chair and giving him a strangely hopeful look. “How are you feeling?”  
  
“Head hurts,” is all he really has to respond with. Anne leads him gently toward the table and pulls out a chair for him.  
  
“You were asleep for over sixteen hours,” Dan says, setting a mug in front of Eddie as he slowly sits down. Everything hurts, and Eddie groans.   
  
He doesn’t touch the mug at first, too distracted by the throbbing in practically every cell of his body, but eventually the smell of coffee reaches his nose, and he actually realizes what is in the cup. He picks it up and takes a careful sip.  
  
He’s gradually made his way through half the cup of coffee before his eyes feel adjusted enough to the light that he can look around without squinting, and he’s starting to put things together again.  
  
He’s not with Anne. He doesn’t live here anymore. But he’s here now, and they’re both being really nice to him. It feels a little odd, to be honest, but he can’t place why. He stops.  
  
Venom.  
  
He puts the mug down quickly and goes still, searching his mind for the other’s presence.  
  
Nothing. Empty. Silent.  
  
He’s alone.  
  
His chest tightens up. The memories come back to him: they killed it. He feels his hands start to shake.  
  
“Hey… Are you okay?”  
  
Eddie’s eyes snap up to see Dan looking at him across the table, his face concerned.  
  
“You just went really pale, are you feeling-“  
  
Eddie stands up suddenly, knocking his chair over as he does, and he stumbles back away from the table. “Oh, God,” he says weakly. It’s really gone. They killed it.  
  
The other two are both standing up now too, and they move toward him, concern and fear on both faces. Anne’s hands are outstretched toward him in a calming gesture.  
  
“You- you…” Eddie takes another couple steps away from them before his knees give out on him and he drops to the floor. A sob escapes him. “You killed it…”  
  
Anne reaches him first, and her hands come to rest gently on his arms as she crouches in front of him. The touch that had always felt so supportive and comforting to him now feels like a lie. He reacts violently, lashing out and knocking her away. “You murdered it!”  
  
Eddie tries to get up, tries to get away, but his legs won’t obey him properly, and he falls to the floor again, and another sob bursts out of him. He ends up on his side on the floor, covering his face with both hands as the full force of the situation hits him like a train.  
  
Dan’s hands are on him next, and he lashes out again, but Dan just pushes back, trying to restrain Eddie. It’s not until Eddie catches Dan across the face with a fist that Dan backs off, and Eddie is able to scramble away. He’s blind with panic, and all he knows is he’s in their house, and there’s no safe place for him to go. He ends up locking himself in the bathroom, and curls up with his back pressed against the door. He sobs.  
  
Things had been going so well, he had thought. He had made peace with the alien inside him, and subsequently had someone who would always be there for him, who would protect him, who had the ability to save him from basically anything, including being shot. They were bonded, in symbiosis, and Eddie figured, were in it for the long haul. They were in it together. But now it’s dead. It’s gone, and he’s alone, and he doesn’t know what to do.  
  
It’s well after he has cried himself out and sits staring unseeing across the dark bathroom that he’s jolted back to reality by a knock on the door directly behind him, and he nearly jumps out of his skin. He looks around, wide-eyed. The only light is the light coming in under the door.  
  
“Eddie?” It’s Anne’s voice, and Eddie tenses. “Can we just talk?”  
  
For a minute, Eddie doesn’t respond, and he hopes she’ll just leave.  
  
“Please, we just want to help you.”  
  
“You murdered it,” Eddie responds bitterly.  
  
“We had to save you, Eddie.”  
  
“I didn’t need saving,” he snarls.  
  
“Eddie,” Dan cuts in, “I know you’re probably confused-“  
  
“I’m not confused! I’m angry! You had no right!”  
  
“We couldn’t just sit by and watch it hurt you!” Anne is getting frustrated, and he hears Dan say something quietly to her.  
  
“Okay,” Dan says to Eddie. “You’re angry. I understand that. But please, just hear us out.”  
  
“I don’t want to talk to murderers.”  
  
Anne speaks back up, and by her tone, Eddie can tell she’s very, very done with him. “Don’t make a double standard here, Eddie. That thing murdered at least a dozen people, and had no plans of stopping.”  
  
Eddie cringes a little against the door.  
  
“So get off your damn high horse and listen,” she gives Eddie no room to cut in. “Whether you want to admit it or not, whether you even _remember_ it or not, it was fucking _hurting_ you, and we weren’t about to let it continue. I don’t care if you thought you were friends or whatever, it was fucking with your head, and you needed to get out of that situation. Maybe we had no right to step in and break up your happy little intergalactic relationship, but let me tell you what I have seen over the last few weeks.”  
  
Eddie sinks lower on the floor, knowing she has only just gotten started.  
  
“I’ve seen you look even worse than you did in the weeks after you basically ruined your own life and you were moving all your shit out of here. I’ve seen it punish you in public for calling it something it didn’t like. I’ve seen the cuts on your hips, the gashes on your back, and the bite on your shoulder. I’ve seen you shut down out of pure terror of what it has done to you. I’ve been forced to watch as it fucked you in the ass until you couldn’t even scream anymore. And then, after all that, I’ve seen you fucking _defend_ it, and say it would never do what I had just seen it do. It hurt you, Eddie, it hurt you so badly that you couldn’t even remember what it did, and then it somehow tricked you into thinking you were friends, and there is no fucking universe where that is a healthy way to live. If you want to go on mourning that monster, then fine. I’m done.”  
  
By now Eddie is curled up, his hands over his head, and he cries quietly. He hears Anne stomp away outside the door, and then he hears Dan sigh.  
  
The other side of the door remains quiet, and eventually, Eddie’s sobs quiet down, and then fade away entirely. His eyes are burning from crying. It’s a while longer before he hears Dan’s voice, and he jolts a little. He had assumed Dan had left as well.  
  
“I know you’re probably overwhelmed right now.” Dan’s voice is gentle. “But you know Annie. She’ll come around. We just want to help you, and I think I can explain a few things and answer some questions for you. But I won’t push, okay? We can talk when you’re ready.”  
  
This time Eddie actually hears Dan stand up and walk slowly away, and for a moment, Eddie holds his breath, listening for sounds outside the door, wondering if he might be able to sneak out, go back home, and leave all this behind. But he doesn’t feel like that would work. If they were willing to kill a living being for their misguided need to keep him ‘safe,’ he doubts they’re going to just let him walk out now.  
  
He’s so exhausted.  
  
He heaves a heavy sigh, puts his head down, and eventually drifts back to sleep.  
  


  
*****

  
It’s not a very comfortable place to sleep, and finally he gives up on hiding and comes out. Anne and Dan are sitting on the couch this time, watching something on the TV with the volume so low that Eddie hadn’t even heard it.  
  
They both look at him again as he emerges, and he wonders how awful he looks.  
  
His eyes focus on Dan’s arm where it’s draped comfortably over Anne’s shoulders, and he quickly looks away, his chest hurting. It’s like adding insult to injury, being here and seeing this kind of thing after all that has happened. He’s hoping at this point he can just limp back to the guest bedroom and close himself inside until he starts feeling less terrible, but Dan quickly stands up and moves toward him, his usual look of caring concern on his face. Eddie cringes away.  
  
Dan pauses when he sees Eddie’s body language. Anne is close behind him, though, and continues past him toward Eddie. Eddie stays frozen and almost lets her put her hands on him, but jerks away at the last second with a snarled “don’t touch me.”  
  
Part of him still loves her, and he thinks he always will; but right now she has basically twisted a knife in his back and cut part of him away, and he can’t handle her touch, can’t stand being so near to her.   
  
Anne is frozen, her hands still hovering where they were a moment before she would have touched him, and Eddie slides himself away from her. He still doesn’t think they’re going to let him leave, so he heads straight for the guest room and closes himself inside, making sure to lock the door behind him.   
  
He stands still and listens for a moment, but doesn’t hear anything outside. If they’ve moved, he can’t even make out their footsteps. He goes to the window, peeks past the blinds to see if there’s any way he could get out that way, but of course there isn’t. Not when he’s on the second floor.  
  
Eventually he curls up under the covers that are so much nicer than anything he owns anymore, and sleeps away the rest of the day.  
  
Eddie wakes some time later to their voices, muffled from somewhere else in the apartment, but just loud enough to make out.  
  
“You have to give him some time, Annie. He’s been through a lot, and it’s going to take him a while to make sense of it all.”  
  
“How long does a person need to understand that a monster was hurting him? He has the scars to show for it!”  
  
“The traumatized mind can be a really complicated thing,” Dan replies with a sigh. “He had to have been under such incredible stress that the only way for him to really be able to survive it was for his mind to convince itself that the alien wasn’t hurting him.”  
  
“But if he’s not under that stress anymore, why can’t we just convince him?”  
  
“It was completely real to him.”  
  
“I just feel like he doesn’t trust me,” Anne says with a huff.  
  
“Stockholm syndrome can be a powerful thing. But people do recover from it. I just think we need to give him the space to do that in his own time. You can’t force this.”  
  
“I hate watching him be like this…”  
  
“I know. But if it’s okay, I’d like to keep him here as long as he’s willing to stay. I think he’ll benefit from the support and company while he straightens things out in his head.” There’s a brief silence. “Just try not to push him, okay?”  
  
Another brief pause. “Okay,” Anne answers quietly.   
  
Eddie rolls over and folds the pillow over his head.  
  
Dan had mentioned Stockholm syndrome before. But he’s wrong. Dan is a doctor, of course he’s going to try to diagnose anything he thinks is wrong. He and Anne are just seeing what they want to see. They don’t want to see that Venom had actually changed. They want to see Eddie as broken and confused, in need of help and maybe able to heal from damage done.  
  
It’s bullshit.  
  
He lets out a sigh, presses the pillow harder against his ear, and tries to let himself drift off again as he listens to the eerie emptiness in his head.  
  
  
*****  
  
  
He wakes sometime in the middle of the night.  
  
He gets up quietly, glances past the blinds and double checks that the sky is dark and the street is quiet. Next he tiptoes over to the door and listens to the sounds of the apartment. Also quiet.  
  
His clothes are folded neatly on the dresser, and he quickly changes back into them, leaving what he assumes are Dan’s PJs in a pile on the floor. He leaves his shoes off, but carries them with him as he opens the door as quietly as possible and sneaks through the apartment. It’s dark, but Anne didn’t do a lot of rearranging after he left, and he can still navigate it by memory and feel pretty well.  
  
He’s forgotten that one of the steps down to the front door creaks when you step right in the middle of it, and he freezes as it groans loudly under his foot. He holds his breath for a second, but decides that if it is going to wake them up, staying put isn’t going to be of any help to him, and he hurries the rest of the way down the stairs, unlocks the door, and hurries out onto the street without bothering to stop and put on his shoes.  
  
He makes his way down several blocks and through an alley before he decides it’s safe to stop and take the time to put his shoes on before he steps on a piece of glass or something. He checks his pockets and is relieved to find his wallet, phone, and keys are still all there. He hadn’t thought of it in advance, but he wouldn’t have been surprised if they had taken any of those away, probably ‘for his own good’ or some other shit like that.  
  
He takes a moment to block both Anne and Dan’s numbers on his phone. He doesn’t even want to know if they try to call. They’re clearly not on his side, and he doesn’t want their attempts to help him.  
  
It’s late and the cable cars aren’t running, but he’s walked this plenty of times, and wouldn’t mind the time alone to think.  
  
It still gives him shivers to think about how quickly Anne went for the kill after she discovered Venom’s weakness. He feels incredibly guilty for being the one to give away that weakness. He was disoriented after the pain, but what the fuck did he think was going to happen when he told them that the sound hurt Venom? He knew they hated Venom.  
  
He forces out a sigh and shakes his head, trying to jar the thought from his mind. He may be as guilty as they are in the death of the symbiote, but at least he hadn’t _wanted_ to kill it.  
  
Anne and Dan were so sure that Eddie was the victim in all of this, but wasn’t Venom the real victim? Taken from its home by an insane, rich scientist, kept in containment for who knows how long, experimented on, forced into hosts who probably didn’t match it… And then it finally found a chance to escape that life, finally found Eddie, and for the longest time, it had no choice but to stay with a host that hated it. All it wanted was to be wanted. Another pang of guilt hits Eddie in the chest.  
  
But he marvels at how it changed when it did get that sense of wanting. All Eddie did was beg for it to come back to him, and it opened up, showed him kindness, completely changed its ways. They had made each other miserable at first, when all they needed to do was realize they were in it together.  
  
He stops by a liquor store a couple blocks from his apartment and picks up as much as he can both afford and carry. The way he sees it, he just lost a friend, and if he ever needed and deserved to drown his sorrows, now’s the time.  
  
When he gets home, he stops after closing the door, and looks around. He doesn’t really know what he expects. It’s not like Venom somehow survived and is waiting here for him. The apartment is empty save for him, just like his head is.  
  
It feels weird, though. He knows it’s only been about a day, but so much has happened that it feels like he hasn’t been here in forever.  
  
His fridge is still pretty full from his last shopping trip, and he hasn’t eaten in quite a while, but he doesn’t have an appetite. He can feel that he is hungry, but doesn’t feel the ravenous need to fill it like he used to when he had Venom. He drops the two six packs of beer and bottle of Jack on the counter and rummages through drawers for his bottle opener.


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know some people can't really handle vomit, so here's your warning: be careful of paragraphs 7 and 8 of this chapter. After that you're fine.

He wakes to voices, and it takes some focused attention to actually understand them.  
  
“Shit. Was this bottle full? Eddie. Eddie, wake up.”  
  
“There’s a receipt here. I think he bought all this last night. Fuck.”  
  
“Help me roll him on his side. I don’t want him choking if he vomits.”  
  
Eddie feels hands jostling him, and he forces his eyes open and groans.  
  
Fucking Anne and Dan. How did they get in?  
  
“Get the fuck out,” he says, or at least tries to say. He’s not sure if it actually comes out in any intelligible way, and then his stomach heaves, and the next thing he knows, it’s emptying itself violently.  
  
He groans when he’s finally done throwing up. “Fuck…”  
  
He closes his eyes for just a moment, and when he opens them again, everything around him has changed. He looks up at the tiled ceiling, and takes a deep breath, noticing the practically aseptic smell of the air. He lifts his head, groaning slightly as the movement makes him suddenly dizzy. He tries to focus his eyes.  
  
Hospital. This is definitely a hospital room.  
  
Eddie swears.  
  
There’s an IV in his arm, and he’s dressed in a hospital gown again, and the memories of Venom’s murder flash back through his head. Eddie quickly starts to get up.  
  
“Hey, hey, no. You have to stay put.” Anne is suddenly hurrying toward him from near the windows of the room, but Eddie swings his feet over the side of the bed and sits the rest of the way up.  
  
“Please, lie down,” she continues, moving in front of him and trying to stop him. “You shouldn’t get up.”  
  
“I don’t want to be here,” Eddie says, trying to push her away.  
  
“You _need_ to be here, Eddie. You nearly drank yourself into a coma.”  
  
“Yeah, I wonder whose fault that is.” Eddie’s still slurring a little bit.  
  
Anne stops. “Are you blaming _me_ for this?”  
  
“You’re the one who killed it,” he responds bitterly, tearing the IV out of his arm.   
  
“I did it to help you,” she retorts. She tries to stop him again, but he pushes back, and she quickly reaches for the call button on the side of the bed and slams her hand down on it before she gives Eddie another push back as he starts to stand up.  
  
Eddie doesn’t make it very far before there are a couple nurses hurrying in and trying to herd him back to the bed. “Sir, you need to lie down.”  
  
“I’m fine,” Eddie says, but his head is spinning, and soon it feels like the whole room is spinning.  
  
Eddie loses his balance and falls to his knees, and a second later he blacks out.  
  
When he wakes, he’s back in the bed and the IV is back in his arm. He groans and looks around. The bed is propped up now, the upper half tilted upward to hold him almost sitting up. Anne is sitting in one of the chairs by the window again, and on his other side, Dan is standing, looking over a chart in his hand.  
  
“Your blood alcohol level is still pretty high,” he comments with a sigh. “We pumped what was left in your stomach. If you had absorbed any more, it could have killed you.”  
  
“So I got a little carried away,” Eddie tries to dismiss.  
  
“This is serious, Eddie.”   
  
Eddie turns his head and looks straight at Dan, a glare on his face. Dan stands his ground. After a moment, Eddie turns and stares back up at the ceiling. “I don’t want your help.”  
  
“Do you want to die?” Dan’s question is blunt, and Eddie takes pause.  
  
“…No,” he finally answers. “But I want you to leave me the fuck alone. You’ve done enough damage.”  
  
Dan clenches his jaw for a second. “This isn’t about Venom. This is about you, and your life and wellbeing.”  
  
“You can’t force me to stay here,” Eddie says challengingly. “I know my rights.”  
  
“Actually, I can,” Dan replies as he crosses his arms. “If I determine you’re too intoxicated to make informed decisions and you’re a danger to yourself. I could restrain or sedate you, but I would rather it not come to that.”  
  
Eddie falls back against the pillow behind him with a sigh. He doesn’t want it to come to that either, but he really doesn’t want to be here. This is where Venom died. He stares up at the ceiling again and doesn’t respond.  
  
Dan steps closer. “I don’t want to use force, but I need you to understand what is going on with you.”  
  
“And what the fuck is that?” Eddie snaps. “Are you going to tell me about how I have Stockholm syndrome and I’m misguided and confused about Venom?”  
  
Dan sighs. “Yes.”  
  
“Well it’s bullshit,” Eddie snarls.  
  
Dan leans against the side of the bed, near Eddie’s feet. “Denial is common, but you tick just about every box for Stockholm, and have demonstrated signs of trauma, including memory repression.”   
  
Eddie lets out another forceful sigh and leans back again. He wants to just get up and leave, but honestly, he’s not sure if he would make it to the door without falling down.  
  
“Stockholm syndrome,” Dan starts in his very, very doctor voice, “is a psychological defense and survival mechanism that typically happens when a person is in a situation they can’t escape from, and they fear death or serious harm. In order to reduce stress and increase their own chance of surviving, the victim aligns with their abuser or captor. They start to believe things, like that the captor is a friend, that they are struggling together with a shared difficulty, or even that the captor is a victim and needs help. The victim’s thoughts align with the captor’s ideals, and in doing so, the captor can be appeased enough to decrease the harm done to the victim. The victim is thus more likely to survive, and also feels less stressed because they no longer see the captor as a threat.”  
  
Eddie stares at Dan as he talks. He wishes he could tune him out, but the words come through, and Eddie doesn’t like the fact that he can’t deny it could explain his own situation.  
  
Dan studies his face for a moment before he continues. “I’m not going to try to force you to accept this. But just… think about it a little, okay? Recovery from Stockholm is rarely easy, and you may carry your current feelings about Venom for the rest of your life… But if you’re able to start to come to terms with it, you can start to heal.”  
  
Eddie turns his head away and refuses to acknowledge Dan, and after a moment of silence, Dan stands up slowly. Eddie sees him motion to Anne out of the corner of his eye, and Anne stands up and follows him out.  
  
Eddie sighs.  
  
Other than his grief, he doesn’t really see what he has to heal from. Even if he was wrong about Venom, the alien is gone now, so what’s the harm in going on believing that everything was fine in the end?  
  
Eddie sleeps a little bit after that, and when he wakes, Anne is back in his room.  
  
He turns his head and watches her for a moment. “Are you my prison guard now?”  
  
Anne sighs. “You’re not in prison, Eddie. We’re just trying to look out for you.” Her voice sounds tired. “You… you really scared me, you know.”  
  
Eddie’s heart clenches painfully at that. Any hint that she cares about him makes him hurt with longing to be with her again. He looks away from her and stares at the lump of his feet under the blanket.  
  
Anne stands up and moves over to the side of his bed, and Eddie looks back up at her hesitantly.  
  
“I know that what I did…” She pauses uncomfortably. “I know it really hurt you,” another pause, “and I’m sorry. I was just trying to help.”  
  
Eddie tears his eyes away from her again and looks down. Her words don’t sound forced, exactly, but he knows her well enough to know that this isn’t the kind of direction she would normally go after the way she has been acting. He’s expecting her to try to justify herself again, to tell him how bad Venom was treating him, but she doesn’t.  
  
He jumps a little as her hand comes to rest on the back of his, and he turns to meet her eyes.  
  
“I just… I don’t want to see you hurt yourself like that again,” she says next. “Is there anything I can do?”  
  
Eddie stares up at her, his heart beating fast. A hundred options run through his head.  
  
 _Let me out of here. Never hurt me like that again. Stop dragging me along. Come back to me. Leave me alone. Give me Venom back. Stop fucking with my life. Just say you’ll trust me from now on. Let me do what I choose._   
  
But are any of those really going to make this better? Venom is still gone, can’t come back, and Anne is the one who did the deed. He’ll never be able to forget that.   
  
“Just… leave me alone,” he finally says, his voice on the edge of cracking. He doesn’t know if he wants to be able to hold her close like he used to, or push her away and never see her again.  
  
Anne’s hand slides off of his, she gives a silent, resigned nod, and slowly leaves the room.  
  
Eddie stays put after that. He’s pretty sure he’s not so drunk anymore that Dan would be able to stop him from leaving if he wanted to, but now he feels like he just needs some time to think.  
  
The shock of Venom’s death had hurt, the fact that Anne would do that had hurt, and the silence in his head feels wrong… but does he really _miss_ Venom? He had made peace with the alien, but was it really anything more?  
  
He thinks about what Dan said, about what the mind can do when put under too much stress. He doesn’t like to admit it, but it had been bad, having Venom at the beginning. It mistreated him, it raped him, it hurt him. He’s pretty sure he had used the word _trauma_ multiple times himself. But he had been so sure it had all changed after that. He had felt, down to his core, that it was different. A shudder runs down his spine anyway.  
  
Maybe he was wrong. Maybe Venom had fucked with his mind. But every time he tries to apply the term _Stockholm syndrome_ to himself, it doesn’t feel like it fits. It just doesn’t feel right. He had always trusted his gut feelings, and right now, they’re telling him that Venom had changed.  
  
But isn’t that exactly what someone with Stockholm syndrome would think? It doesn’t feel like a syndrome when it’s happening to you. Somehow, your mind makes it make sense. He guesses that’s all part of the deal. If the mind is going to trick itself to protect itself from stress, not realizing it’s doing that is all part of the game. Otherwise, it doesn’t work, right?  
  
Eddie squeezes his eyes shut, takes in a deep breath, and holds it. It still feels wrong. He doesn’t know anymore. He holds the breath until he can’t any longer, then lets it out in a rush of air and presses his head back into the pillow. He doesn’t understand what’s happening, and trying to think about it just makes him feel more exhausted. He wants all of this to stop, and he just wants to sleep until time dissolves away all his problems.  
  
He lies there for minutes trying to silence the buzzing that seems just to be growing in his head. All that confusion spins and spins until he doesn’t know what to make of any of it anymore.   
  
Eventually, he manages to quiet it just enough to drift off again, but his sleep is as disturbed as his thoughts were.  
  
  
*****  
  
  
The symbiote has an interesting taste, when it’s in his mouth. It’s not quite the same as the taste of its tongue, those times it has shoved it down his throat. The sliminess of that tongue in his mouth makes his stomach twist, but its cock in his mouth is almost easier. This taste is almost… metallic, maybe? He can’t quite place it. He sucks off the water sprinkled across it from the spray of the shower.  
  
His thoughts scatter as two large, clawed hands grip the back of his head and shove him forward. The cock lances down his throat, and Eddie immediately chokes. He braces his hands against the symbiote’s hips and pushes back, but can’t free himself.  
  
Venom lets him up to breathe for a second before forcing him down on it again, forcing him to deepthroat it. His face is pressed into its groin, its cock making his throat bulge uncomfortably. He tries to shake his head weakly, and his throat convulses again. What did he do to deserve this?  
  
Finally it lets him go. Eddie falls back away from the creature and gasps for breath.  
  
Things seem to shift quickly, and the next thing he knows he’s on his back, his knees being pushed up to his chest, and Venom is looming over him, lining itself up to his ass. He looks down, and the cock is easily four times the size it was. Nausea spikes hard in his stomach.  
  
This had started out simply enough, and he had tried to convince himself that it was okay. Venom won’t hurt him, and if this is what he needed to put up with to keep the symbiote happy, then it really wasn’t so bad. Doubt flares in his mind now. That cock is big, and it is going to hurt, he’s sure of it.  
  
He doesn’t remember agreeing to this, doesn’t remember Venom even asking. He doesn’t want this. It’s raping him again. He thought they were past this…  
  
“No,” he begs weakly. “Please, don’t-“  
  
But it shoves in suddenly and every muscle in Eddie’s body tenses at the agony. He screams.  
  
Things shift again. He’s on his front, and instead of his spine being pressed into the edge of the tub, his face is being pressed into the couch. Venom is on top of him, its cock deep in his ass, and Eddie knows he has torn, knows the feeling of blood easing Venom’s way as it thrusts violently into his body. His insides shift as it fills him up.  
  
Eddie wails in agony, and through his screams, he’s aware of other voices, begging and pleading. He turns his head to the side and tries to see through the tears in his eyes as Venom jerks him back and forth on the couch. Anne and Dan are on the other side of the living room, ensnared in Venom’s tendrils. They struggle to get away, but can’t.   
  
Venom almost seems to grow inside of him, and he buries his face in the cushion again and screams at the pain.  
  
  
*****  
  
  
Eddie shoots upright with a gasp, flailing against the large black hands holding him down. They’re gone, though, and the only thing his blindly flailing hands find is a tray table over his lap, a neatly-wrapped hospital meal laid out across it. He shoves it away and doubles over, his stomach heaving painfully, though there’s nothing for him to throw up. A little bile fills his mouth, and Eddie grimaces.  
  
It’s a minute before his heart rate slows and his breathing calms enough for him to think. He searches his mind, expecting to feel Venom’s presence, but it’s still empty save for himself. It feels like there’s a hole there, a blank spot that ought to be filled.  
  
After Eddie calms his nerves a little more, he pulls the tray table closer to him again and focuses on the meal in front of him. He eats it ravenously, trying to distract himself from the images. It was just a dream, he tries to tell himself. His mind made it up. None of it actually went that way.  
  
But he’s unsettled.  
  
He does remember Venom fucking him in the shower. He had tried to wipe the memories away, but he can’t deny: he hadn’t wanted that. What he doesn’t remember is being face-down on the couch as Venom fucked him. He thinks, though, about Anne and Dan claiming that they were forced to watch it fuck him, and he shudders. They told him he repressed the memories, that the blood on the couch was from Venom forcing its way into him. The dream is eerily similar to their story.  
  
Eddie slows down a bit, and peels the foil off of the small orange juice bottle before taking a mouthful. He picks at the potato salad, but his appetite is waning the more he thinks.   
  
Were those his repressed memories coming back? Or had his dreaming mind made all that up, based on what Anne and Dan had told him?  
  
When he has finished as much as he can stomach to eat, he pushes the table away again and leans back. Nausea threatens to bring his meal back up, and he swallows a few times, trying to force the feeling down.  
  
He’s still working on that, and feels like maybe he has been for a while, when Dan comes into the room. Eddie glances up at him, and sees his brow crease.  
  
“How are you feeling?” Dan’s voice sounds unsure.  
  
“I, um… it’s nothing,” Eddie says. “I feel fine.”  
  
Dan does that thing where Eddie can tell he wants to press the matter, but holds his tongue. Instead, he checks the IV bag hanging to Eddie’s side, then pulls something out of his lab coat pocket and holds it out to Eddie. “Finger, please.”  
  
Eddie stares at it for a moment before he realizes it’s one of those little things that clips onto your finger and reads your pulse and oxygen. He holds up his hand, index finger extended, and Dan clips it on. Dan then pulls out another little device and snaps something onto the side of it before holding it in front of Eddie. “Can you blow into that, please?”  
  
Eddie sighs, but does, and Dan checks it. The thing on Eddie’s finger beeps, and he takes that off and checks it as well.  
  
“Can I go home?” Eddie asks weakly. He needs to be somewhere else, needs a distraction from his thoughts.  
  
“Speaking as your doctor,” Dan says, “yes. I can get your discharge papers ready in a few minutes. Speaking as your friend… I’d like to ask if you would be willing to stay with Anne and I for a while.”  
  
Eddie opens his mouth to immediately decline, but Dan continues quickly. “You wouldn’t be a prisoner. You don’t have to sneak out. I just… I know you’re going through a hard time, and… I feel responsible. I just want to make sure you’re okay.”  
  
Eddie’s silent for a moment. “I can’t do that,” he finally responds, his voice a little rough. They made a mess of his life just when he felt like he was finally getting it together again, and he doesn’t think he can stand being around them that much.  
  
Dan lets out a quiet breath. “Okay,” he says, a little sadly. “I’ll get your paperwork together.”

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Rules](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19235053) by [squadrickchestopher](https://archiveofourown.org/users/squadrickchestopher/pseuds/squadrickchestopher)




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